I'm still a wife first

We've made it to 24 weeks! We're now starting to check things off the development checklist as our little one prepares herself for life outside the womb. Ears: done; fingernails; done; lung walls: secreting surfactant. Surfactant is "a surface-activated fat that helps your baby's little lungs inflate" (babygaga.com). It continues to amaze me how quickly God grows a living, breathing baby! Miss Ilyana is now a little over a pound and about a foot long, about the size of an ear of corn (and to imagine that we started at the size of a poppy seed!). She's moving around a lot, especially when I eat or drink anything chocolate, and loves to have swimming practice when I take a bath. I love watching my stomach move while I'm in the bath, she really goes nuts! She's been making it really difficult to breathe lately (especially when I'm sitting for a long period of time), which has been rather uncomfortable. But I'm learning to take more shallow breaths more often to try to make it easier.

Becoming parents is a journey Jake and I are so excited about, but as excited as I am about becoming a mom, I'm still a wife first. This past weekend I went to a women's retreat, which was an encouraging and refreshing time. The theme of the retreat this year was "Godly womanhood". Like most retreats, I learned a lot of great things that I wanted to apply to my life and to our marriage. But unlike most retreats, I decided to pick 3 things that I felt would be most beneficial at the current time to actually work on and apply. Here are the 3 things I chose to work on:

1. Greeting Jake with a hug and kiss. Often when Jake gets home from work and school I'm in the middle of some sort of activity (housework, watching tv, derping on facebook) and I will take the time to say "Hi!" but then it's usually back to whatever activity I was in the middle of. The first challenge I have for myself is putting aside what I'm doing to get up and give my wonderful husband a hug and kiss to greet him when he gets home. It is such an easy way for me to show him that he is more important to me than whatever it is that I'm doing (because he is!).

2. Asking him how I can help. A great idea one of the woman teaching mentioned was that she asks her husband everyday "How can I serve you today?". I would really like to ask Jake this question daily, I think it will make him feel really loved and supported. I also think this one will be one of the hardest and I will have to really prepare my heart ahead of time everyday. Some days it may be as simple as just giving him lots of sweet hugs throughout the day, but other days it may be less... exciting, like doing the dishes. Can I put aside my own hopes and desires for the day to serve my husband?

3. A change in how I view housework. Up until now, I have viewed housework as a dreadful task that just has to be done... eventually. Some things aren't so bad, in fact I find vacuuming rather enjoyable, it's just things like dishes and putting away laundry that really get me. But one of the speakers this weekend mentioned something so simple, yet so profound to me. Housework is a way I can serve my husband. I would really like to start viewing housework in this way rather than that thing that I have to do... tomorrow. I don't think that this change in heart will come easily, and I don't think it's something that will change how our house looks over-night, but I would like it to change my attitude and I think, eventually, it will at least make doing those dishes a little bit easier.

Information about Ilyana:

EDD: Feb. 27th (109 days)

How mom's feeling: Counting down the weeks until we get to meet the little miss!

How dad's feeling: "I'm super excited for Ilyana to be out. I've been really enjoying getting to really feel her moving around consistently."