Joy to the World

The Season of Giving

There was a toy collection box behind the Santa photos at the mall. I have no idea when it was put there, but when we first found it, four days before it was going to be removed, it was empty.


Save for one toy truck and some pieces of trash, it was just a black hole of nothingness.

We had Rosemary with us. She was fussing and I said, "It's okay, Sweetie, we'll come back tomorrow with toys for this box." It broke my heart to see a lack of giving from the community in this way. I thought I'd fit in a trip to Toys R' Us in the morning to pick up a few things for the box, but Senpai was pissed and wanted to do something about it right then. We had just received good news that Senpai's contract job was secure for the next year, and he was determined to share the wealth. He stormed off to Sears and started loading a shopping cart full of toys.


I wanted to help pick toys out, but Senpai was on a mission, and someone needed to chase Rosemary between the clothes racks.


Here's his loot. When he told the manager at Sears what the toys were for, the manager kindly took 50% off each item. Senpai said this made him want to get more!


The Donation Box after. It still needed work, but Senpai did make a dent in it. I placed a Facebook call out to locals telling them about the box and encouraging them to make a donation in the limited time that was left. I never had a chance to go back to the mall again to see if more toys were added or not. I dearly hope so.


Jelly Bean

On another note of Joy, I waited so long to share the following bit of news that the initial excitement has worn off and now I don't know how to say it.

Out with it, I guess: we're pregnant again. ^_^ I'm 14 weeks now; baby is due June 22. We plan to find out the gender but we do not know it yet. [Update: Girl!]


Here's me and the Jelly Bean (baby) at 12 weeks.

I've been seeing high risk Maternal Fetal Medicine (MFM) doctors in St. Louis every two weeks. (Early on, I asked if they'd always see me this often and the doctor replied no, they will see me more often later in the pregnancy! I guess that answered my question.) They help me keep my blood sugars under control, and, with this close care, we're all hoping that Jelly Bean will gestate longer than Rosemary did. [Update: she didn't.]


That's it for now. I'll post Christmas morning pics as soon as we can extract still frames from the video we took. [Update: Doesn't look like that's ever going to happen. Sorry.] Merry Christmas from We Look Like a Family!