I would love for you to address how to keep up with homeschooling and meals in the midst of pregnancy/all day nausea and exhaustion. Without outsourcing children to the tv all day. And without complaining. I remember you said during one of your pregnancies that your goal was not to complain about being pregnant. How did that work out? As I look back on my previous 3, I can see that I complained a LOT. ~Annamarie I would love to know how you handle pregnancy tiredness and staying motivated and get things done. ~Cristy I’m with Annamarie and Cristy–would love advice on staying motivated while pregnant and NOT complaining. ~Michelle How I would love to be able to tell you girls that I have conquered the sin of complaining, but I can't.  Because I haven't.  I did purpose to not complain the last two pregnancies, and just keeping that in the forefront of my mind helped.  That and taking every thought captive (2 Corinthians 10:5). Pregnancies are a lot different for me now than they were when all of the children were under the age of say, six.  Now I have several who can make meals, change diapers, answer the phone, etc.  But back in the day when they were all without a lot of, shall we say, brains, I did have to utilize some survival tactics: 1. Small meals of protein. It took me a lot of pregnancies to figure this out, but once I learned that the advice to eat Saltine crackers was the absolute worst advice ever, I could keep the morning sickness at least at the surface instead of allowing it to totally take me under.  Hard-boiled eggs sounded horrible, but after eating one, I felt I could manage.  Almonds, cheese sticks, turkey slices, peanut butter (straight out of the jar if necessary). I also drank a lot of water with fresh lemon.  And if the nausea was particularly overwhelming, I drank lemonade.  The combination of sugar and lemon juice helped tremendously. 2. Alter the priority list. If I did one thing right during pregnancies two through nine, it was this.  During the worst bouts of morning sickness, my goals were to feed my family and make sure there was clean laundry.  If I accomplished those two things during the day, I counted it a success.  In light of that, I was able to see that we accomplished far more, but I didn't feel like such a failure just doing a few things during the day rather than the full plate that I can tackle when I'm not pregnant. The first and third trimesters are not the time to paint the living room.  Ditto to volunteering to teach a co-op class, sign up for swimming lessons, or cater your sister's wedding. 3. Continue to have a plan. Don't throw the schedule entirely out the window.  As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I made a battle plan: a new and realistic schedule for the first 18 weeks of morning sickness and the last 10 weeks of exhaustion, as many meals in the freezer as I could make, and a mental list of friends and family I could call on to help.  My two best friends bailed me out even when I didn't know I needed it. 4. Serve a communal breakfast, or, Do whatever gets you through the worst. When I was pregnant with number three, the older two were four and two years old.  As I lay in bed in the morning overwhelmed by nausea and rising only to vomit, I relied upon a Tupperware bowl of Cheerios served to the two little guys on the floor of my bedroom while they watched PBS.  It bought me an extra hour in bed and they were as happy with a communal bowl of cereal as they would have been had I served pancakes. I remember pouring that bowl the night before, getting their water bottles filled and all of it ready to go in my bedroom.  It was a self-serve picnic, and now at almost 16 and 14, they aren't any worse for the wear.  Do whatever gets you through, mama.

Expecting our sweet number seven, who turns two in just two weeks!

You all wrote so many incredible questions that I actually had to categorize them so I could wrap my brain around them. Then I told Lisa since she got me into this, she needs to help me with the answers, so you all can look forward to some helpful answers from my always-elusive friend Lisa who really does exist even though she doesn't blog and never comments here. What's with that??? Two of you wrote some very funny questions and so I thought I'd answer one of those each time I answer the serious questions, just to keep things light. From Vicki: How do you choose baby names? The short version: Randomly. I mean, we know that God takes names very seriously now, but when we were starting out, no one had ever really challenged us with that thought. The long version (Potentially boring. Feel free to skip.): So our firstborn was named for my husband's closest three friends at the time, the second boy was a name we liked plus my mother-in-law's maiden name, the third was named for my brother and grandfather but is called something entirely different (go figure). Our first daughter's name was one we liked the Biblical meaning of, but her middle name came about because the then-four-year-old approached me one day and said, "I think her name should be --- ---". "Really?", I replied. "Why do you think that?" "Because God told me", he said. Well, OK, then. Not sure whether he had a word from the Lord or not, but the story is fun to tell and the kids get a kick out of it. Fifth is a girl with a name we like plus her middle name is Joy because we wanted to clearly communicate to the naysayers that we thought a fifth child was a joy! Sixth is named after a family friend and has the most unusual name of the bunch. Most people say, "Huh?" or call her something entirely different. Seventh is named Christian because, um, well, because we're Christians... and the last little guy was named for his grandfather on one side and great-great grandfather on the other. And now for the serious question (although Vicki was probably being serious when she asked about the names, but it was a fun and easy one to answer all the same): My name is Rebecca and I live in Washington State with my husband and our four preschoolers; Daniel (5.5), Michael (almost 4), Mercy (2) and Josiah (2 months). Your recent post about leaving your older kids in charge while you left them for the day was so awesome- Just to think of being able to do that some day with mine was like a window into the beautiful future of training these little ones up! (from Kendra- YES! I am so glad it encouraged you because I was there not so long ago and I remember thinking, "This is gonna be SO great!" Hang in there!) My question is about nursing. You mentioned in one of your recent posts that you were pumping every three hours to help your newest little guy stay fed. Are you unable to breastfeed? Or are you doing pumping to increase your supply? After successfully nursing my oldest three, I was a little confused at why I've had trouble nursing my fourth little guy. He has a pretty small mouth, has gained weight slowly and takes a long time to eat. At two weeks my milk supply kind of disappeared and I spent the next two weeks nursing, pumping and bottle feeding the expressed milk to help him gain weight and to help increase my supply. Now, at two months, his weight is much better and I'm not pumping 'round the clock but I'm still thinking he could be a better nurser if maybe I helped him more with his latch or something... Before I had Josiah, I knew that nursing was difficult for some women and some babies but I hadn't experienced that with my own. I am just curious to know what struggles you and your babies have had or are having and what you have tried to do to remedy them. I have enjoyed nursing my babies for the sweet bonding time it brings as well as for the health benefits the babies receive but this time around nursing has been more of a struggle and painful physically as well. I'd appreciate any thoughts you have! May God bless you and yours today, -rebecca After fifteen years of breastfeeding babies, it still amazes me that most first time moms are not told how difficult breastfeeding can be. I was one of them and I thought, "It's natural. It's just what babies do." Except mine didn't. Even the lactation consultant at the hospital (a BIG San Francisco hospital that saw lots of births) told me he was the laziest baby she'd ever seen. Great. I was a 22-year-old first time mom who tried my best but ultimately stopped pumping for him when he was six weeks old and just went to formula. Part of the reason was that I was in terrible pain and part of it was that I didn't see a reason to keep at it. I don't regret the decision, and oddly enough he is one of our few children without food allergies. He was a healthy baby and is super smart, so there go all the reasons to have breastfed him, eh? With every single baby breastfeeding has been excruciatingly painful until about six weeks. Time after time I was told I must not be getting them to latch on correctly, but when I would seek help from LLL, consultants, or midwives, they would tell me everything looked great. This is one of the reasons I wish the "experts" would stop telling moms that "if done right, breastfeeding doesn't hurt". I'm sorry, but at least for me, that's not true. It wasn't until our seventh that I realized (ok, yes, I'm a little slow) that my anatomy factored into all of this in a significant way. When I contacted yet another lactation specialist last year and told him that I had never seen this issue addressed in any breastfeeding literature, he told me that in all his experience, he's had two moms like me. TWO. Wow. And his advice? I must do whatever it takes to keep baby nursing eventually if that's what's important to me, and if that means pumping until baby's mouth can handle my, um, size, then that's the way it is. I could have hugged this man if he wasn't all the way up in Canada! Finally, an expert who realized that I wasn't doing anything wrong, and that given my God-given features, it would hurt anyway. So when our little guy came along last month, I knew that once my milk came in, I would pump until about six weeks. It is a huge commitment, as you know, but I am willing to stick it out because I know the benefits all the way around are so worth it. But here's the deal. It's not a hill I am going to die on. If little Joe doesn't latch on this week (he's six weeks today), I am not going to make it the central issue of my life. There are seven other children in this home who need me equally, and to continue to make breastfeeding an idol would bring no benefit to anyone. I fully expect him to breastfeed as the others have, but if he doesn't, that's ok. I might cry a little because I'm a mom and that's what we do, but I realize that breastfeeding alone does not make me a good mom. There are many, many, many other facets of mothering Joe that will contribute to a healthy childhood as a whole. I'm not sure how my answer will help you in your situation, Rebecca, but I will pray for you and ask the Lord to give you wisdom. And for the pain to subside as well! Peace, Kendra

Hey Kendra! I am going on 37 weeks pregnant now and I am needing some ideas for keeping my girls occupied (4.5 yrs and 19 mos.) while I am in bed recuperating the first few weeks. I don't want them getting bored and getting into mischief so I need activities they can do while I am in bed or on the couch supervising them. Thanks so much for any help you can give. I really appreciate your wisdom and practical advice. Hope all is well with your pregnancy. ~Andrea Hi Andrea- I had a friend who had to be on bed rest for all four of her pregnancies. She would park herself on the couch for the day, fill a cooler with snacks and drinks the kids could help themselves to, and put up a gate to keep them all within her reach. The children were close in age- four in six years- so she had a ready supply of DVDs, books, toys, and coloring books, but she doled them out one at a time. While you won't be bedridden, the idea of having things close at hand and prepared so you don't have to think on the spot is a good one. In that vein, I would also have breakfast ready to go the night before. Even having cereal bowls, spoons, and the cereal set out on the table is one less thing to think about. Make sure you are drinking all the water you need throughout the day as well as getting enough protein in whatever form you can. Almonds in a bowl so you can grab them, peanut butter on crackers, etc. can help you get through the first weeks and still keep you nourished and hydrated. And this might seem obvious, but don't start anything new. No new school plans. No new projects. No potty training! Blessings, ~Kendra