We're expecting!

April 30, 2007

Dear Family and Friends,

Green is now the official color around here. There’s good moisture in the ground, and warmer weather has been here long enough to warm the soil, so everything that’s prepared to grow is doing so with all speed. That includes our spinach patch, and we are, just tonight, sitting down to our first little spinach salad of the year. The other effect this is having on our diet is that the chickens, which are relishing their access to all the green stuff, are laying eggs with dark yellow yolks, which is supposed to be a reflection of higher vitamin B content.

Kali and I, Jason, have managed this year to do more gardening than ever before, since Kali is now at an age which favors longer, more intense work sessions. So far the list includes lettuce, carrots, sugar snap peas, peach trees, garlic, onions, cilantro, and lots of spinach. We’ve also started (inside) slicing and Roma tomatoes, bell peppers, okra, basil, parsley, marigolds, and one which we are keeping as a surprise for Janelle. The spinach and most of the lettuce is from seeds we saved from gardens past. I am amazed that so far the critters have damaged our garden beds only incidentally or marginally, but I am so sure that that trend will not continue that we’re going to be taking protective measures soon.

Of course, if it weren’t for the danger and noise involved, we’d probably feel obliged to direct all this work potential towards making progress on the addition, but it’s probably good for all of us to get our attention diverted from that project periodically. It can tend to be all-consuming.

Speaking of progress on the addition, we now have a sound roof covering, thanks to our friend Sam Petersheim and his friend Paul White. Sam dropped off Paul in the morning on the day of the project, and returned to help finish up from 3:30 to 5:30. Paul amazed me in the morning with his claim to out-roof with hand nailing the average worker with a nail gun. Throughout the day he proceeded to prove it.

Next we need siding, and I’m very much looking forward to getting going on that project. We’re using rough-sawn white pine for the material, in a reverse board and batten style (battens underneath, boards on top). We’ll see how it turns out. So far I have no complaints about the design, but progress still seems slow.

Of course it would feel that way right now, since we are in the middle of the busiest two-week stretch of Janelle’s work in the year: graduation is just behind us and the Summer Peacebuilding Institute is about to begin. She’s needed to work a few extra days this last week and will need to work an extra day this coming week as well. That means that Kali and I have gotten more gardening done, but that I’ve had very little chance to make headway on the building project.

“Why are they so bent on finishing this addition”, you may be asking yourself. “Can’t they just relax and live a little while they make what progress they can? Whatever happened to enjoying the process, anyway?” Well, we are still enjoying some elements of the process, and we do feel a need to make things sane while we make progress, but there is also a very good reason why we feel a little bit of time pressure to finish this thing. It has to do with the fact that building a living/dining room with ONE child around is hard enough…

Yes, that’s right, we’re expecting our second child, to be born somewhere around midnight on the 18^th of November. We’re terribly excited and it feels like the right time in our life for this. Of course it doesn’t sound to most of you like we’d need to be concerned about getting this building done in time, but we would not like to be down to the wire on this one. We are currently thinking that two children will be the right number for our family, so that means this is probably the last time we’ll experience this together. We would like to have the freedom to savor the feelings and events that come our way. A highlight so far has been our first appointment with the midwives. Because of some questions related to timing (and possibly the nurse’s sense that Janelle really, really wanted it) we were treated to an early ultrasound, and all three of us were there to see it. Kali seemed to have trouble making out the image, and I think for that reason the appointment was a bit of a disappointment for her (though she also took every moment in as now she practices ultrasounds on Janelle); we need to remain sensitive to her needs throughout this process and her ability to comprehend. Her parents, however, have become fully engaged in the bonding process. It was special for me to be holding Kali on my lap and watching the dim image on the screen of the little one hidden deep inside Janelle, remembering back to when that was all we knew of the one who has now come to mean so much to us, and knowing that just as much love awaits us with this one. Janelle was, as she expected, entranced with the images. She remembered that little ultrasound room fondly from our experiences with Kali, and her fondness for it has now only deepened.

I am amazed by the human ability to ascribe meaning. Clearly no one would argue that a human being would have any sort of instinct to want to get any early glimpse of their unborn child, nor could any culture have possibly developed an ancient and time-honored ritual involving ultrasonic imaging machinery. Perhaps these are some of the reasons that some folks seem to be against ultrasounds unless absolutely necessary; as if it’s cheating yourself out of the natural way to take advantage of the technology. Well, I suppose I am more interested in following the “natural way” than the average person, but I fully confess that I have enjoyed every minute of the ultrasounds we have experienced, and I would even go so far as to say that there are some elements of ritual or rite of passage to them. With Kali, we had taken advantage of the ability of the ultrasound tech at 20 weeks gestation to provide with information regarding the child’s gender. We had sort of thought that we wouldn’t do that this time—save the surprise for its “natural” place, you know—but we think we’re actually going to do that again this time. It’s not so we can go out and load up the Subaru with pink or blue ahead of time. Anyone who knows us knows that gender stereotyping is not looked upon favorably in our house. I’m not really sure, to tell the truth, exactly why it’s appealing, but I have two theories. One is that we both know that Janelle, as a rule, operates in her strengths when she knows what to expect. As we’ve talked about it, we’ve realized that we really want the event of the birth to be focused on safety for everybody (every body), and on celebrating the beauty of Janelle’s and the baby’s bodies and minds doing what they are made to do. In some ways, finding out the gender beforehand frees our minds at the time of birth, and puts the attention where we feel it belongs for us. But maybe as much as anything it’s this: if we didn’t get to find out, all together as a family, in that special little room with a big, expensive machine at Shenandoah Women’s Health Care whether Kali was going to have a little brother or sister…well…we’d feel we had missed something.

Another reason we want the addition finished is that we’re still hoping to have some kind of party to celebrate our 30^th birthdays and our settling in this place sometime in October. Janelle probably won’t be kicking her heels too high around that time, but will still likely be capable of throwing a pretty good shindig. We hesitate to set a date yet, because of my history of optimistic time projections for completion of various building project stages. All the same, we hope to establish one soon so YOU can plan to be there!

Another reason we want the addition finished is that at the end of July we will have been in the middle of a massive home remodel for 2 years. I didn’t think it would take this long and we’re really very tired of it. But we will finish it. Because we must, because we want that room, because there’s no turning back now. If you happen to be wondering as you read this whether we could use a hand getting this thing done, then my persuasive writing skills have worked their magic and we accept! But seriously though, we will admit to being at a point of accepting help, skilled or unskilled. There’s always something to do, and we’re happy to trade for work done at YOUR place just as soon as we get the chance!

That’s it for this month, I think. As usual, we’d be eager to hear from any and all of you, and thanks for being interested in our news.

Love, Jason for Janelle and Kali

P.S. In other news, after thoughtful consideration we have decided against adding a “cordless weed-eater” (Janelle’s description of a goat) to our homestead. We’ll save that one for next year when we can do it right.