In Praise of Grandparents!!

My mom arrived to help me 6 days before my scheduled induction. My dad came 3 days later. The truth of it is, my parents come here to Florida 4 times a year for 2 weeks each time-give or take on some trips. They figure once they have flown 3,000 miles and changed 3 hours of time zone, they may as well stay for a while! We estimate that they spend more time with us and our kids than they do with my brother and his kids who live 35 minutes away from them in California! I guess it was a good thing we moved so far away.

Anyhow, my parents came early because they know that a 9 month pregnant woman loses steam at the end! They wanted to help me with the kids before as well as after Gabriel's arrival. What a HUGE blessing they were to us! My mom went early (5:45a.m.) to the hospital with me since Marc was willing to stay home and sleep in our stead, then get the kids over to the sitters for the labor and delivery. Because I was delayed at the hospital, my dad actually took the kids to the sitters by around 9:30 a.m., they he and Marc hung out at the house until we called at 11:30 a.m. for them to come since the induction had begun! My parents rubbed my back and encouraged me all through the longest labor of my life, brought me Starbucks each day (including fall pastries!) and brought the kids to visit (since Marc had to get back to work.)

Normally, our home runs on several schedules. We have school schedule, food schedules and chore schedules. My parents jumped into those and did them the best they could with flexibility. The did such a good job! When I got home from the hospital they continued to play with the kids, make the meals (when one wasn't delivered from someone at church), care for me, hold the baby, take the kids out on dates, errands and shopping trips. They went to the grocery store and Costco repeatedly and my dad even worked on our mortgage issues for us with our loan company! Dad took the kids fishing and did a 12 item long "Daddy-Do" list that I had waiting for him! Mom diced up fruite and veggies for the kids in ways I never do-what a blessing for their health! They put up with all the kids ups and downs, crabby 1 1/2 year old, crying 3 year old, pestering 5 year old, and kept the 8 and 9 year old on task. They were caring and patient (honestly, it can be quite trying to the patience to have that many kids at home 24/7) loving and completely serving! Servants really is the term that described how they acted while at our house for 2 weeks. They served all 8 of us in every and any way they could. They deeply love Marc and I and every grandchild that we have now given them! They feel almost as blessed as Marc and I do that God has sent these 6 amazing personalities into our lives.

My parents deserve some praise and I am happy to post it here that they are the best grandparents in the world and they are a blessing to us in so many ways, both temporal and eternal! I love you dad and mom!

Welcoming Gabriel Marc Wragg

Gabriel is here at last! I cannot believe my pregnancy days are over! We were supposed to induce him at 6 am. on Wed, Sept. 16th, but there was a miscommunication with the hospital and they had to keep me waiting in the recovery room until almost noon waiting for an open delivery room. My Doc didn't want to start an induction on a sixth baby in the recovery room, just in case I went fast. In the end, she could have started it at 6 am, because the labor took the other approach and went longer than any other I've had! I progressed very slowly throughout the day and even Marc's grandma had to head home to get some sleep because she couldn't make it through. Sadly, she didn't make the birth! My parents and Marc hung in there for the long haul and around 1:30 in the morning on Thursday I was finally complete and ready. My doctor, on the other hand, was home in bed. I have never had to wait to push before so that was a whole new experience and I ended up feeling like a first time mom in the delivery phase! He was born at exactly 2 am, which is a fun fact and was my smallest baby at 7 lbs, 10 oz, 20 inches long.
The other kids had an emotional week. I made the mistake of telling them that they would see the baby on the day I delivered, assuming it would all go as previous deliveries had. They went from Christmas Eve-like elation to depressed tears when they had to go home with the babysitter after AWANA and were not able to see their brother who had yet to be born. Then on Friday when Sarah and Dan were slotted to come visit me again, they both had come down with head colds and I wouldn't let them come to the hospitel-not for Gabriel's sake, of course, since he was coming home to them, but for the rest of the moms and babies on the maternity ward! They cried hard on my parents but Daddy rewarded them on Saturday when they were feeling better, and for the first time ever, they got to come help Daddy pick up Mommy and Gabriel at the hospital and bring us home!
My parents are here until the 28th and are a HUGE help! There is a lot to do around here with toddlers, homeschool, 3 meals a day, laundry, etc, etc, but they are being troopers and I couldn't believe how relieved my mom looked when I told her today what a good job she is doing! A reminder that we all need lots of encouragement in these high-chaos acts of parenting! Not only do Marc and I have to learn how to raise 6 kids, but my parents end up learning the juggle as well when they are here to help! What a reminder that God isn't finished with our influence when our own kids are raised. We are still useful and teachable when we are serving the next generation as grandparents!
So we are home and doing very well! I am certainly not up to speed yet and have to rest several times a day, but what a joy it is to have a new little baby around the house. The kids are continually asking to hold him and all Leah wants to do is get a binkie in his mouth! Marc held him on Saturday afternoon for his first football game, but other than that continues in true Marc fashion to wait for this baby to grow up to walk and talk before he is truly interested in him. He is thrilled, however, that God gave us a third boy, the one he choose to name after an angel. His middle name, Marc, means warrior, so we have high hopes for our warrior angel and as sooon as I get the picture from my friend, I'll show you how he already laces his fingers together in prayer :-). Love to all of you who prayed for us and are praying. We are SO BLESSED with our 1/2 dozen!

Pregnancy Comes to It's Final Days

So the days had come for her to give birth to her sixth child . . . OK, so a mild paraphrase of the gospels. The truth remains, I am expecting to have Gabriel on Wednesday-3 days from now! Gabriel has been squirming around in his confined quarters, anxiously awaiting freedom I'm sure. I will enjoy having space to bend over as well, though we have started a great new habit around the Wragg home of Mommy pointing to things that CHILDREN can pick up!
I am trying so hard to enjoy these last 3 days of being pregnant, the kicks, the squirms, the intense pressure at times. Gabriel will be our official last baby. Marc has plans this month that I'm not allowed to talk about but you all know what I am talking about! Pregnancy has always gone pretty well for me. I don't feel sick longer than the first 3 months and my deliveries have all been pretty similar: 7-8 hours induced. I am content now to know he is the last, I wasn't ready when any of the others were born, but I am now. 6 kids is a lot of work and a lot of blessing, to be sure! It is also a LOT of fun to have 3 girls and 3 boys in an every other pattern. God has abundantly blessed Marc and I above all we could ask or imagine. We did not know when we first married and talked about having kids how it would all go. And here we are, at the end of the pregnancy stage of life, ready to move on to more parenting, teaching, discipling and loving!

1 year old Counting

Leah will be 2 in mid-October. At the Lagoon the other day she was counting shells for my sis-in-law Amy and I.

She counted, "One, Two, Mommy!"

She repeated this same count every time I asked her. I am happy to be her #3 if God and Daddy are #1 and #2!