Tiresome and some venting

Lately, I have been extremely exhausted. I feel like I can sleep all day and night...maybe that wouldn't even be enough sleep, though. It is strange. Honestly, I have always been a lover of naps and 9 hours of sleep a night. However, this pregnancy is kicking me on my heiney! And then - on top of it - I am so nauseous. I can't begin to count all of my nasty, up-chuck moments! I guess the grossest is a few weeks ago when I was driving up north and "it" just came over me and I grabbed the closest thing, an empty cup from the cup holder and up-chucked into it. I didn't even miss a beat! (By the way, I was the driver) Yea, trying to take care of a 2 year old and grow a baby is HARD work...I feel like superwoman! The good news is that I am half way through the 1st trimester. I will hopefully be feeling better in just over a month. Fingers crossed that this so called morning sickness and fatigue will disappear after the 1st trimester. In other news, we had a wonderful 4th of July. We went up north to a little town called Lincoln! How neat is that?! Our best friends have a family house up there and so we hung out with them and had a fun time. Lincoln made out like a bandit at the parade on Saturday. He got a HUGE bag of candy (which is a no-no in our home so we only gave him a few and then tossed the rest) and he throughly enjoyed his sucker too much! He actually ate the sucker stick! Philip says that he is banned from them, now. We really enjoyed taking a few days off and relaxing at the beach. It was nice. Lincoln is such a water lover and he couldn't get enough of the beach.
Lately we are just working and doing the same ol' stuff. Lincoln has become a little difficult on some levels...he has always had a temper and lately we have noticed it even more so. He is definitely having a hard time hearing the word no lately. I am sure that he is going through his "stage". It must be hard for him to communicate also, so, I am sure that it frustrates him even more. He has a horrible mean side to him as well. He will hit and pull hair, throw things, and throw himself down. All of this will result from something so simple as me or Papa saying that he can't have something or if we don't do something that he wants us to do. Of course, I love our little man to pieces but I just want everyone to know that the perfect boy that I write about and share with all of you, is in fact, not perfect. He is an amazing person with the mind of a 2 year old...it is totally normal for him to be acting out like he does, I know. We approach it all with such great patience and I must give props to Philp. He used to be quite an impatient person and now that we have Linc, he has really mellowed out! We are just trying to figure out a good way to balance out our differences. With that in mind, I would like to add that we just ordered a Time Out mat and are so excited to get it. Lincoln does well with time outs and I think this will help us because it is portable.
On another note - I would like to talk about my pregnancy. We have been so frustrated with some of the comments that we have been getting. Some people are either ignorant or just don't think before they speak. Others are truly sincere but misinformed. Whatever the reason I would like to address a few things.
Philip and I PLANNED this pregnancy. This was not a "surprise" or an "infertility miracle". Philip and I went to the doctor and told her that we were ready to start trying again (we haven't been trying because we were wanting to adopt all of our children.) Due to lack of funds we have decided to save for a few years for another adoption while we raise Lincoln and our other babe. In the beginning of our marriage we were already "in tune" with each other about adoption. (One of the conversations we had during week one of our dating was the importance of adoption. We both really wanted to adopt.) After a year of trying to conceive and a visit with a doctor who said, "people with Poly Cystic Ovaries have a hard time conceiving due to irregular ovulations." We pushed forward with the adoption route. We are SO happy that we chose to adopt first. Obviously, because we now have Lincoln but another reason is because of our wanting too for so long and most people are just talk and don't do it....I was worried that it may be our case...but it wasn't! Another thing that I want to add is that we have experienced sleepless nights! We did visit Lincoln during his early months and were able to wake up with him. Granted, it was only for about a week. When Lincoln came home he was sick with Chicken Pox and that gave us plenty of sleepless nights, as well. Not to mention all of the many nights that he has been home and will wake up out of the blue - as children do...another thing is that for the first few years of Philip working for the company that he works for he was on call ALL of the time. He was paged at ALL hours of the night and trust me - it was tiring! Thankfully he has since climbed the ladder in the company and is not on call now except for a few on occasion. And lets not forget that I am a nanny of 4 children. Two of those children I helped raise from infancy. With that said, I am so tired of people stating that now we will be able to experience a "real" baby. GRRRRRR! What is Lincoln?! Plastic? People are under the assumption that Lincoln came home already "trained" and is the "perfect" baby/child. Um, not true. He is a great kid and ofcourse has all of the normal toddler tendencies but we (Philip and I) like to take credit for who he has become. We have worked together and raised our son to be the little man he is. We don't spoil him-we say no plently of times throughout the day-we don't feed him junk-he has been somewhat restricted in his few years on earth and for that, we think it has helped him. He is not jolted by all of the sugar from juice or sweets and therefore is calmer than other toddlers his age. He is calmer because of that reason along with how we raise him - not because he came home "perfect". If he has a "sweet tooth" then we will offer him some fruit....nothing wrong with that. Some people complain that we are depriving Linc of the "good stuff" and we don't agree. We are trying to instill good eating habits onto our son. He has many years ahead of him to eat candy, cake, ice cream, and all of that "good stuff". Okay, enough of that......lets move on.
If I hear another person say that, "This happens ALL of the time! Everyone adopts and then they get pregnant! I just knew it was gonna happen!" I will knock them out! It may happen, yes. But not because we, or others, adopted. It happened because we were TRYING. We waited 2 years and decided to expand our family. We liked the age gap and we're not financially ready to begin another adoption. We had a friend react to our pregnancy with shock. He was like, "Whoa, how did that happen?" Um, well, you see...when two people really love each other and..........blah blah. It all goes back to the birds and the bees - people do not conceive based on the fact that they have adopted. If that makes any sense. Also, just because we can conceive doesn't mean that we are not going to adopt again. We look forward to the journey of adoption again. To some people, they find it strange, especially if we can become pregnant. Many people want their "own flesh and blood" (we've heard that a few times) they can't imagine raising "someone else's baby". We feel sorry for their close mindedness and fortunate for our open arms. We don't care what-so-ever what color our child is or who they look like. Our child is a beautiful gift from the Lord.
I could go on and on about all of the petty comments that we have received but I guess I will take a break from venting. I just wish that people could congratulate us and KEEP YOUR COMMENTS TO YOURSELVES. I don't want to list all of the rude comments but I will say this, "We couldn't be any happier than we are right now and we look forward to what our futures hold. Life has been truly wonderful to us"

Popsicle Time!

Hanging out with Brayden.

Here is Lincoln being silly.

Mama and her little man.

Lincoln at his 2 year check up. 28lbs and just over 31 inches!

Cheese!

Here we are at the 4th of July Parade!

Lincoln showing off his heiney!

Mama, Aunt Cole, and Lincoln feeding the horses.

Up north for the 4th of July.

This was on Lincoln's dedication day at the restaurant afterwards.