7 Quick Takes that have nothing to do with Pregnancy

I follow the Conversion Diary Blog by Jenifer Fulwiler.  Every Friday she writes 7 quick takes about life lately and invites others to do it too.  I thought it would be fun to join in this week.  If you want to see her post, and all the others click here.

1

Yesterday I walked somewhere between 3 and 6 miles.  I'm not sure what the distance of our bike trail is, but I did 6 laps.  This was my last ditch effort to get labor going again.  It didn't work and so I have completely given up on this baby ever coming out.  I wont mention my pregnancy again until I suddenly have a baby in my arms.  (But I will say that for how determined she was to get conceived she seems pretty indifferent to actually being born.)

2  

I took a personality test because there was a link to one on Jenifer's blog and I can't sleep.  I vaguely remember taking this test before, and I was pretty certain I was the INTJ type, but I wanted to be sure.  After 80 questions the results came up, INTJ (Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging) and I was like, "yup."  Then I read the profile and was like, "That is so me!"
Things like this are especially true:

INTJ personalities also have an unusual combination of both decisiveness and vivid imagination. What this means in practice is that they can both design a brilliant plan and execute it.
Click here for the full description of my personality type - it explains a lot.  And if you want to take the test and find out your type then click here.  

3

While we are on the subject of personality types I want to talk about Charlotte for a minute.  I've always said that her love language is "Acts of Service."  She loves to help and is always doing things for me.  But lately I've felt like I was missing a piece of the puzzle.  I felt like I just wasn't connecting to her emotionally as well as I could be.

I thought about it for a while and finally decided that she shows love through service (like her Daddy), but that's not how she receives it.  She receives love through "Words of Affirmation."  I noticed that she loves to repeat praise that I give her.  She is always saying, "I a good helper" or "I a good sister."  And if I scold her she takes it really personally.  

I've been paying more attention to giving her praise and I feel like our relationship is a lot better.  

4

Thinking about Charlotte's love language led me to re-evaluate mine.  Back when I read the 5 Love Languages book over 10 years ago I decided that I was a "quality time" type of person.  But now I'm thinking I might be a "Words of Affirmation" type too.  

I know that I love hearing praise from people.  I'll think about nice things people have said about me over and over again.  And I always need Brandon to tell me that I am doing a good job.  I think the lack of feedback from other adults has been the hardest thing about being a stay at home mom.  It's probably why I love blog/facebook comments so much (hint hint).

(Full disclosure: I just took the test on the 5 love languages site and Words of Affirmation did come out slightly higher than Time - but only slightly.  Take the test yourself here.)

5

The kids and I have gone to story time at the city library for two weeks in a row now.  The girls are so much better behaved than they were a year ago when "the easel incident" occurred.  In Bountiful the girls used to wander around the room while all the other moms stared at my three kids while sitting peacefully with their one child (that's how it felt).  

Here there are lots of kids and they all wander to various degrees.  The program itself is also more accommodating to young people.  There is always a craft, and they have a puzzle area set up for kids that just can't pay attention the whole time.

The girls like to start out sitting by my chair (chairs for moms is another improvement over the Bountiful storytime), but they usually migrate to the back of the room and start playing with the craft stuff or the puzzles.  Derrick wanders the whole time, but he loves to occationally go up to the main little rug area and sit with all the kids.  He'll just plop down on the floor like, "hey I'm here, entertain me."

6

Speaking of Derrick, I feel like he has crossed over from being a "baby" to being a "little boy."  He still isn't talking, but he's able to understand a lot.  The other day I sang him the song "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and he raised his hands up above his head for the "Up came the Sun" part.  I was so excited that he knew some actions.  So I sung a bunch of other songs to see what he would do.  He knew all the actions to Pop Corn Popping and he clapped at the end of every song.  I think he's been learning a lot in nursery.  

He also loves the song "Jesus Wants Me for a Sun Beam."  He'll jump every time I say the word beam.  Well, at least try to jump.  He'll crouch down and then stand up really fast and throw his hands up in the air.  But his feet never actually leave the ground.  It is so cute and I've been trying to film it for weeks.  

7

On Tuesday I took the kids to Hobby Lobby so we could buy a pattern for the girls' Halloween costumes (and 'cause I thought a little bit of anxiety might get labor going for me).  I put Derrick in the cart, but the girls were allowed to walk.  I was so worried about what they would do when they saw all those cute yet oh so fragile displays.  I told them this was a store where we could only look at things - that we couldn't touch them AT ALL.  And the girls didn't touch anything at all.  I was so impressed and so proud.  And I made sure to tell them that over and over again.

I'd done my research for what pattern we needed so I just had to grab that.  I thought we'd make a quick retreat to the cash registers right after that, but the girls were doing so well that we actually walked around and looked at things.  The girls continued to keep their hands to themselves even when we passed a whole display of nothing but snowmen.  

The magic continued at the checkout counter.  The girls could see candy, but they didn't touch it. I kept reminding them that we had our own fruit snacks waiting for them in the car.  I said something along the lines of, "some people aren't prepared and they have to buy treats here, but we brought our own."  Which caused the people behind us in line to laugh. 

_

Well I better go back to sleep (it's 3:30 am right now).  Lindsey is talking about going home in the morning, and I think Brandon might actually have to go to work all day, so I'm probably going to be in charge of all the kids on my own again - unless this baby decides to get things moving soon.