(Sorry if you came here before and found just a weird conversation, it was part of the post, but I have written it only in Portuguese! Now, 2 weeks later, the English version! )
I admire very much the blog writers that post daily… or even weekly! I don’t have this determination But I’ll put an effort on coming here more often! Who knows if the info we put here is helping someone out there!
20 weeks pregnant. Phew! We’re half way through! (full term pregnancy lasts normally around 40 weeks, remember?) At this point, the baby weighs around 300g and keeps growing in fast pace. The bum is not much bigger than in the last post (there’s a photo there!). I’ve been having loads of back pain, but I believe it’s not yet the “weight” of the bump, I didn’t even gain much weight in this pregnancy. It’s bad posture for sure! I’m on the average of putting on 1kg per month, specialists say it’s the ideal. When I was pregnant with Evelyn I got to 93kg!!! I don’t even want to reach 90kg this time. Loads of lettuce for me then! LOL!
Evelyn is gorgeous, she’s understanding more and more the words we say but still speaks very little intelligible words. She waves hi and goodbye even when I tell her in English (our mother tongue is Brazilian Portuguese). We taught her a hand sing (baby sign language) meaning “more”, but she uses it whenever she wants something! (smart girl!) She didn’t say clearly “mommy” or “daddy” yet, but I don’t think it’s bad. I think she’s more concentrated on her motor skills so she might take a while for her speech to develop. Absolutely normal, according to specialists.
The other day, I wrote about Gaius Baltar, one of the core characters of the TV series Battlestar Galactica (a very polemic one too). The title of this present text has to do with another character of that series: Kara Thrace, a.k.a. Starbuck. In my opinion she’s the most confused/confusing and unexplained character, but I like her anyway. She puts her emotions on everything she does, even when she doesn’t know what to do. She’s stubborn and proud, as much as most of us, and she’s inconsequent most of times. As I also used to do some years ago, in front of others, she shows a strong and determined person and shares her mistakes, weaknesses and fears with a few close friends.
Here you find a conversation she had with Lee Adama (another very “difficult” character). The dialog is broadcast in the end of the series, as a memory of the day they first met.
Lee: “flying when you’re thinking about dying isn’t a great way of doing business. you’re gonna get scared, you’re gonna start second guessing yourself”
Kara: i’m not scared
Lee: “BUT…you said you think about dying everytime you get into a cockpit”
Kara: uh huh
Lee: “welll…hello…”
Kara: it doesn’t scare me Lee, that’s what you don’t get.
Lee: “what, so it’s Kara Thrace: fearless warrior …right?”
Kara: No. I know fear. And i get scared, just not in that way
Lee: “so what does scare you?”
Kara: …being forgotten.
Many people may not confess that, but they have the same fear. They live trying to leave their mark in the world so that when they’re gone they won’t be forgotten. I lived like that for many years. I’ve changed my way of dressing, speaking, acting, and facing situations so that people would go home thinking about me. I don’t know if it worked or not, but today I’m sure that nobody is unforgettable. The biggest achievements we can think of are unknown/forgotten by many people. Nobel Prize, important pieces of literature, change of currencies, kings, queens, thinkers, educators, wars, and so on. By the way, many people have a deep knowledge on the deeds and achievements of fictional characters (like Harry Potter, Twilight and even Galactica!) and don’t know that people have shed their sweat and blood to “have their names written in History”. Then there’ll be people thinking “why will I live then if I’ll be forgotten anyway”?
There is a way of being remembered even after you die, I mean, forever. There’s a very special book, it’s in the hands of our Lord Jesus. In this book are written the names of those people that understood that no “good deeds” that they make will be enough to make them deserve go to Heaven. Nobody, by their own deeds, can go there. But Jesus can, and He died to rescue us from this “curse” of imperfection.
The Bible is very clear on what reaction Jesus will have: If your name is recorded in the book, you’ll be remembered by eternity, and He’ll tell you: “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!” (Matthew 25:21) If your name is not on the book, you’ll be forgotten… set apart from God forever… Jesus will tell you: “I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!” (Luke 13:27).
What do I have to do to have my name written in such a special book? It’s a personal decision that involves a change of attitude regarding the world. Jesus has already done what God what supposed to do, He pay the price for anyone who believes his sacrifice to go to Heaven. Our part is deciding if we rather we believe or not that Jesus, and only Him, is the way to get right with God again. Jesus said “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6
Is your name already in Jesus’ book, or you’re gonna be forgotten for eternity?
Here we are, baby and I. 17 weeks pregnant. This pregnancy is being very different from the 1st in some ways… I think what makes the biggest difference is that I could sleep as much as I wanted in the 1st and now… ugh… I’m sleeping really bad now. I don’t know what it is, but I wake up at night and take loads of time to go back to sleep, several times! And when I seem to be getting into a nice sleep, I hear the alarm clock (rather the phone or Evelyn lol!)
I feel less hungry this time, but when I got pregnant this time I was already overweight (baby weight from the 1st pregnancy.) My concentration skills are REALLY VERY limited and I don’t forget my own name just because it’s written on twitter, facebook, e-mail etc. Other “new thing” is the pain on my back. I had a herniated disk in 2008 that made me run into the ER 4 times in 6 months, because I couldn’t bear the pain. It got way better after a while, specially after I quit my job at the time (it made a HUGE difference), I started exercising a bit too, so I didn’t have many problems during the 1st pregnancy, not now… it might be because my muscles are still “relaxed” from the 1st pregnancy, and I’m also lifting a toddler with me all the time to put in her cot, take from it, bath, high chair, car…
I also didn’t have as much headache as I’m having now. I spent 7 days in a row with a very bad headache. I was thinking that the computer might have been the vilain… I also feel more thirsty and wake up every day with my hands swollen! But even with all that, I’m feeling much better than many other pregnant women, I think!
Oh, and you might have noticed that I’m wearing glasses in the picture. I’ve had the laser surgery on my eyes since I was very very shortsighted… It was in the middle of 2009, the optician said I’d be glasses-free until I was reach my 40′s! But last year I started noticing my sight blurred again, and I thought it was the pregnancy (yes, pregnancy hormones change our eyesight.) But last week I went to the optician here in Ireland because it didn’t really get any better after Evelyn was born, we were also about to put our car back on the road and I wasn’t feeling comfortable to drive like that. Result: there was still -1.00 in my eyes So, if you did the laser surgery and feel like you’re still seeing things blurred, insist on a reassessment with your optician. You might need a second “correction” surgery as I needed and didn’t have…
Evelyn is gorgeous! Smiley like ever and now she walks everywhere! On the 11/10 she had her first steps and had never stopped ever since! She is very sociable, she “talks” to people on the shops and waves to everyone at the mall! She has learned many things at home too, like opening the washing machine and climb her highchair. She also sits with books and flips the pages (sometimes she eats them, it’s true) and today she took a nappy sack (with a nappy in) and took it to the rubbish on her own! She walked all the way to the bin (which is taller then her), opened it and put the sack in! the problem is that she wanted to spy on what was inside later lol! Curious Evelyn…
After a lot of fights and tears she now sleeps on her own again and the whole night. When we went to Brazil she got used to sleeping in our arms or always with one of us in the room with her, then when we came back it was hard to break this habit But it’s over now! Now when we’re putting her to sleep she puts her head back as if she’s saying “Come on, put me in my cot already!”
I think those are all the news for now! I’ve been really forgetful… but even if I had more, I think I wrote enough for one day! God bless you, may Jesus bring you peace, and pray for us!
It is interesting to notice that there are things we want to run down the streets telling everyone, right? Some things happen to us that seem to trigger the desire for the whole world to know/notice/see that there’s a change in progress. Two things led me to think about this on the past few days.
The first can be summarized on the picture bellow.
The second was Battlestar Galactica. For those who never heard of, it is a very interesting spacial sci-fi series. A segunda delas foi Battlestar Galactica. Unlike Start Trek (that Esdras and I also like very much) there’s no tech stuff like lasers, individual com badges, universal translator. It looks like it’s real people in real life situations, but they’re in space and fighting for the survival of human race. But it wasn’t space that made me think about “spreading the news”, it was a very polemic character called Gaius Baltar.
He starts the series as a scientist who participates passively in the nuclear attack that the Cylons made agains the humans (at that time he didn’t know their destructive plan). After that he remais on board Galactica as a researcher, but he doesn’t take sides in the war (he keeps information about the Cylons from the military). Nobody know about his visions he has of the blonde Cylon or of his participation on the attack. Some time later, the blond vision convinces him that he plays a key role in God’s plan to save humans and Cylons. After he begins to truly believe thi, he still makes some decisions based on his own ego and in his self-preservation instinct. Then he starts to find followers for the “one and true God” and becomes kind of a religious leader.
But what was really fascinating about him is the courage he has to speak for anyone to hear, regardless of the situation or the “VIP level” of the person. And that’s why he becomes a leader, because he speaks with such a passion that shows that, even though he made mistakes, he screwed up and keeps doing wrong, he found forgiveness and God loves him the way he is because He was the one who made him!
Then I thought… am I speaking with the same passion about the One and True God? And you can say that for him it’s easier, because he’s a character, he’s not real. BUT MY GOD IS REAL, and if I let my passion die He’ll have this against me “Nevertheless, I have somewhat against you, because thou hast left your first love.Revelation 2:4”
I want everyone to know that we have another baby on the way, and with the same intensity I should desire that they all would know the Love that saved me, the only way to God, my best Friend, my Lord: Jesus!
That’s it. One more baby coming to our family to bring us joy, but what is really keeping my mind and heart busy is: what am I doing with the gifts and the purpose that God gave me?
“And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.Mark 1:15”
Have a blessed weekend, and my prayer is that the passion you have for Jesus will always be fired.
This is a fantastic moment of our lives, it could last forever…
Hundred More Years
Francesca Battistelli
Diamond ring and 12 red roses
Everything she ever wanted
All those dreams and now they’re finally here
She’s so young and he’s so perfect
They waited for love and it was worth it
She wants to feel like this for a hundred years
All of this life still yet to live and they can hardly wait
(Chorus)
They can laugh
They can cry
The future looks so beautiful and bright
They can dance
Under the moonlight
‘Cause God is smiling down on them tonight
And she wants to stay right here
Make it last for a hundred more years
She’s got blue eyes just like her mother
Three years old, he’s crazy for her
He wants to freeze this day before it disappears
She’s spinning like a little princess
Making sure he’s gonna notice
He could watch her twirl for a hundred years
She’ll grow up and she’ll leave home but until that day
(Chorus)
They can laugh
They can cry
The future looks so beautiful and bright
They can dance
Under the moonlight
‘Cause God is smiling down on them tonight
And he wants to stay right here
Make it last for a hundred more years
And it’s only time
But it flies right by
And today is sweeter than we know
And so they dance
Under the moonlight
‘Cause God is smiling down on them tonight
And they want to stay right here
For a hundred more years
Yes, back to the blog, but not back to Ireland yet. And if you think we are still in Budapest, I think you got lost in all of our changes LoL!
We left Ireland and went to Budapest/Hungary to wait until Esdras had his visa issued. After that we had a nice “vacation” trip to Venice/Italy where we met Esdras’s brother. The original plan was that I would go back to Hungary with Evelyn and wait until there was something already set for Esdras’s Italian citizenship, but as things were set faster than we expected we ended up staying here, the 3 of us.
Now we are at the Veneto region, surrounded bu mountains!
The changes were very drastic and it wasn’t easy for an almost-6-months-old baby (like when Evelyn left Ireland). It wasn’t easy to sleep on the floor for a few days, it wasn’t easy to get used to a new house, it wasn’t easy to get used to a new cot. And when we left our “home”, she used to sleep through the night, when we arrived in Budapest she woke up every hour at night, and the sleepless nights had a huge impact on me…
The worst part is that there have been so many changes that we didn’t know what was the problem, we only knew that she would keep waking up… after a while we found out she was all itchy, day and night (of course at night it was worse…) We thought the problem was the milk because we’ve changed the brand (in Hungary there was not the same formula brand we used in Ireland), then we though it was the food because we’ve given her jar food, we changed everything and nothing would make it better… when we arrived in Italy it seemed she was a bit better but it was for a short time. I decided to take Evelyn to a doctor (no, I don’t speak that much Italian but the doctor speaks English!)
The doctor told me to stop all the foods to test if it was the milk and if it was to change for a no lactose formula. We did as he said, tried different milks and it didn’t get better (and it gave her an upset tummy!) The doctor also told me that although he thought it was too early it was a good idea to do the allergy tests. We then saw an pedriatric allergy doctor (this time in Italian alone, but that’s the way we learn isn’t it?!) and the first thing she said was to wash her clothes ONLY with glicerine soap. Then she set up the appointment for the test!
The test hat 3 stages: blood tests and skin test with fresh food and with essences. Evelyn cried only a little bit for the blood tests, even tough the skin test was a “prick test”. What we could see very clearly on the skin test is she’s allergic to EGGS! No milk, no types of meat, nothing that I have (I have allergy to a lot of foods!) The doctor also said not to give her chicken and apple. She prescribed creams that worked!! Evelyn is now a new baby!
Now our fight is against the bureocracy of the travel insurance, but I’m so happy her skin is better and that she doesn’t tell herself apart with her finger nails that I’m not really upset with that.
When we left Ireland she wasn’t 6 months old yet, now she’s 7 months! Over the past 2 weeks she learned to do a lot of stuff: she sits upright, she speaks a lot of well defined sounds (papa, baba, tata, dada) and she started crawl very fast (on her tummy, not on her knees!). She’ll soon be sitting up and running around the house!! O.o
Well, that’s all folks. I will sit and write another day, I promise. This experience of having no home is not easy, but we know who is in control and we thank our Lord and God for looking after us, taking us by the hand and guiding our steps. We praise Him for finding this doctor that helped Evelyn to recover from this eczema!.
Hi all! I promise I will find some time to take you to a tour in our new house. New house? Yeah! We are temporarily in Budapest, Hungary. The apartment here is not big as the house we were living in Ireland, but I think you will it’s funny, as much as I did.
But today the subject is not Hungary, not apartment neither Evelyn (can you believe that?!). Today, in Ireland, people celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. One year ago I wrote about i here in the blog. If you want to read it, here is the post:
Many people still have this image of St. Patrick looking kinda like a Leprechaun, many of them even buy St. Patrick’s costumes to go to the parades that happen today (it’s like Brazilian carnival, but people are dressed LOL), but not many of them know what St. Patrick is all about. — A national symbol emptied of its meaning. Sad. — If people really knew what he is about, a true Christian, and remembered the message he brought to Ireland, many bad things that happen daily in that beautiful island probably wouldn’t happen.
Ireland has one of the highest rates in youth suicide… total lack of hope! Families have been destroyed by a history of drinking, drugs and domestic violence. Who would we trust if it starts at home? God says, in the Bible, “Cursed be the man that trustes in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departes from the LORD.” (Jeremiah 17:5) This doesn’t mean that “oh, now I can’t trust even my best friend”, but if the hope of your life is a person, not God, you will be frustrated and depending on the level of frustration (or your self-esteem) the result can be bad, very bad…
Patrick came to bring good news. He explained that there is someone in whom we can trust. The One who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. As the prophet Jeremiah said (after the verse above) “Blessed {is} the man that trustes in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.” This person, independently of the family background, independently of the difficulty he’s facing, independently of the people around him, will experience fullness of life.
Patrick came to tell the celts that Jesus can bring us abundant life (John 10:10.) He is the way, the truth and life. He is the only way to get to God (John 14:6). People forget this, but if you are reading this today, even if it’s not March 17th anymore, think about Patrick, and more than that, think about Jesus. How is your relationship with him now?
Remembering Patrick and the message he spread all over Ireland, I wanted to dress Evelyn in green, but that was what all I got with me here.
May God bless you and open your eyes to the truth, to His Word, to the need we all have of a Savior, Jesus!
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But I’ll put an effort on coming here more often! Who knows if the info we put here is helping someone out there! 
