The Power of Lemonade

I thought I'd have this baby before the start of school.  I mostly wanted it to wait, but you know, the temperatures and the back pain have pretty loud opinions of what they want.  No baby yet.  It's best, as I found out last week my iron is low again and might be delivering in a hospital instead of the birth center. I almost burst into tears when my midwife told me this, but she gave suggestions of what to do and made an attempt to comfort me with the fact I may still have time yet to get my iron up.  It seems our school year motto might be more applicable to me than my school girls right now.

I'm still working on squeezing these lemons, so to speak, and figuring out exactly how to make lemonade out of the situation.  I suppose part of it is what a delicate balance it is to take care of a body, and even the small choices we make have such an impact on us. 

I am feeling grateful now that this baby hasn't come yet.  I might not go as far as eating steak every night for dinner, but I'm consistently sipping some nettle herb tea that is not on my top ten beverages of choice list and adding some iron supplements to my already religiously followed routine of iron and vitamin c.  I am grateful for a body that is able to carry a baby to term and with relative ease.  I know this is not a blessing that should be taken lightly.

I do feel blessed, and know that instead of stomping my feet and complaining about what I want and what I don't have, I should look at the 5 beautiful daughters that were lent to us, and who all came into this world without complication and pray that this 6th will be so blessed while do-ing what I can.

Our back to school dinner was delicious and well-received by our 4 school girls.  Clover and I will have the place to ourselves to chomp on some baby goodness over the next school year.  She seems to have already slipped into big sister mode, insisting that she is not a baby anymore, even when I try to cradle her in my arms.

I am glad and sad.  She has been the baby for so long that replacing that position now with another feels a bit uneasy.  I fear she is more ready than I for the change.  

We dined on lemon-pepper pasta nabbed from our last encounter with Trader Joe's, topped with tomato cream sauce, Ryan's famous meatballs (for those who aren't pregnant) alongside some green goddess dip, Brussel sprouts baked to perfection, plump cherries (that Ryan and I used to spit the pits into empty glasses after the kids were out of site post-dinner,) lemonade with lemon/sugar rimmed glasses, and, of course, lemon bars.

The amber-hued goblets, as told by Claudette, are over a hundred years old.  (Don't tell her we used them in our pit spitting game ;)  They were Ryan's great-grandma's goblets.  I like to think she was pleased we pulled them out to celebrate a year of glass-half-full attitude. 

Pearl helped blow up balloons in the shape of lemons.  She's got great lungs, that one.

It was a cheery dining experience, despite the clouds that rolled in.  Lemon yellow does that.

We toasted to the new school year (after warning and re-warning to clink lightly!)  No goblets were harmed in the making of a great start to the new school year.

After we explained the theme and what it means to turn lemons into lemonade, we talked about how Divine's disappointment in the teacher she got could turn out to be a wonderful blessing, as she might now have the extra help she needs in a subject that doesn't come easily to her (because most do, and that's even more frustrating to her.)  She was the first one to wear the "lemon crown" because of her lemonade day.  Anyone who comes home from school to report a lemonade day will be able to wear the crown during dinner that night.  Divine said she wants her very own for her birthday.  That girl.

Just trying to make lemonade over here.