9 month well check

Truman is doing well! His 9 month check was actually around a 9.5 month check, but it doesn't really matter!

The funny thing about today's checkup is that we were just talking about this same situation with Jon's sister while we were in Houston last week.

The nurse called Truman's name and walked us back to the room. She asked me to get Truman down to a dry diaper. She then measured his length and his head circumference. We then brought him out to the baby scale out in the hall. He was so cute while on the scale! A good thing he sat still for a short time at first so she could get a pretty accurate weight. He started bouncing around on the scale after about 30 seconds!

Anyway, we went back into the room and she said Dr. Mitha would be with us shortly. Meanwhile Jon called to see what our plan was for dinner for Elianna's birthday tonight (I'll do another post soon about her and Connor's birthdays!) Then there was a knock on the door. Told Jon, I gotta go! It was the nurse coming back in to recheck the measurement of Truman's head. I said, "Don't worry about it! He's just got a big head--so did his brother and sister!" The nurse then remeasured and said, "Mom knows what she's talking about."

That's pretty much what I told the radiologist when they were concerned about his head size to femur ratio during an ultrasound :-)

Anyway, the same thing had happened to Kate and Khachik when they brought Alex to the doctor! The Van Hulzen kids just have big heads!

Trumans stats:
Weight 19 lbs. 3 1/2 oz 25 - 50%
Height 28 1/2 inches 50 - 75%
Head 18 1/2 inches 90% (The older two were always at 98%+!! So his is small compared to theirs!

What ifs...

Last week was Spring Break week for the kids and I. So, we all got in the van and took a road trip down to Houston to see Jon's sister, Kate, her family and Jon's Mom. I'll post more about that trip later!

As we spent the 44+ hours in the van I started thinking about a lot of things. It sure is crazy how your mind can flit and flutter between different topics!

One of the things I thought about was all the "What ifs" in my life. And how what seems like a short term decision actually has an impact on a lot of things.

When I was in 7th grade my parents were going to build a house in Bloomington, but then had a disagreement with the builder and ended up building the house we bought from them in Apple Valley. Where would I have then gone to junior high and high school? How would my different friends changed my life? Would I still have been in choir, played tennis, and done gymnastics? Would I still have gone to Dordt?

What if Jon hadn't transferred to Dordt? What if he had stayed at Calvin? Totally a God thing. I love that God had us meet in the one year Jon was on Dordt's campus...plus we started dating the last month of the school year! The only month we lived in the same town before we got married!

What if I had found a full time job in Sioux City? How many years would we have stayed there? Would we still be there?

What if I had found an elementary ed teaching position? Would I still love it?

What if Connor hadn't been a surprise? When would we have decided we were "ready?"

What if we hadn't bought my parents' house? Would we have bought a different house? Would we still have made the same decision about where the kids went to school?

What if our other surprise, Truman, hadn't been born? How would that have changed things?

What if Connor had never had Mr. Coburn as a teacher? We may not know for years to come how he affected the lives of that entire class and their families.

There are so many what ifs it sure makes me glad that I am confident in the plan God has laid out for us. We may not always understand, and I have to learn to be okay with that. Our small group read the book "The Holiness of God" by RC Sproul. There were a few things in there that really got us thinking and some that made our heads hurt trying to put our own earthly spin on our heavenly Father. As I have been reading a lot of Christian Fiction lately too, I am realizing how I need to live my life as a shining example for God. Sometimes it is so easy to slip into the busyness of life and not examine what impact my faith is having on my life.

This seems like quite a heavy post, but I guess I just had these things on my heart. Hopefully I will have time soon to post some pics of our trip to TX!