A pregnant woman's Christmas list.

1. Self cleaning clothes.
2. A new kitchen to magically appear on Christmas morning.
3. A new sleeping schedule for the world, instead of being awake 16 hours and asleep 8 everyone should be awake 8 hours and sleep 16.
4. A mute button on my children.
5. A case of twiced baked potatoes.
6. I want someone to replace every mirror in the city of Helena with those carnival mirrors that make you look skinnier.
7. I want the definition of sexy to become: a person with a large belly and puffy face. Justin Timberlake could even change his song.
8. To go out to dinner every night until the baby is born and not gain any weight.

Really though I all ready got a great Christmas gift, last week I felt the baby move for the first time. To me this is the best part of pregnancy. So merry Christmas to you all and here's hoping that you all have your craziest Christmas wishes come true!

16 weeks

Well today I am officially 16 weeks along so I decided to be really brave and do a weigh in on my trusty, or not so trusty depending on the day, bathroom scale. While I am not shouting my excitement to the skies, I am also not crying in my closet. I have officially gained 15 pounds, I would like to have done better by now, but I have definitely done worst in the past. So 15 pounds in 16 weeks, ugh. I even got on the scale three more times throughout the morning hoping for a drastic 5 pound difference, but no such luck. So if I can gain a pound a week for the next 26 weeks I wouldn't quite hit 40 pounds, that would be good, I can do that! Except next week is Christmas then new years and sweet stuff doesn't make me feel sick anymore, I am not exactly craving it, but lets face it, if it is there I will eat it. It is kind of like in field of dreams (my husbands favorite movie, which is about, surprise surprise, baseball). The big quote of the movie is "if you build it they will come". So that is me "if it is there, I will eat it". Today by "it" I mean an unopened box my sister sent me from Williams-Sonoma that I am pretty sure contains my favorite chocolate in the whole world. How long can I go without opening it, right now it is 9:18 so I give myself until about 9:32, but that is ambitious so we will see. So anyway I think I will wrap this up cause there is a box upstairs softly calling my name "Karen come open me, you want me, it will be so nice" 9:19 now 13 more minutes can she do it? Will she be able to resist temptation? Is she strong enough? Turn in next time to find out the exciting, no scratch that,... moderately engaging conclusion of this pregnant woman's dilemma.

My Favorite Dress

Yesterday as I was getting ready for church I decided that I should wear my favorite dress since it might be the last time I will be able to get into it. As we all know I have been out of my skinny pants and into my fat pants for quite a while now, but so far I have still been able to wear most of my dresses and skirts. So I get out my dress which is strapless, so I wear a sweater over it, it is fitted over the bodice and to the waist then flairs out and ends at my knees. It is all held up by a side zipper. So anyway I put it on and start zipping it, when I got to the small waist part it was rather tight than usual, so definite proof that this baby is getting bigger and expanding its womb up into my waist area. But I found that if I just sucked it in a little (which is a trick all women know how to do, I think it is instinct) it zipped up just fine and didn't feel that tight. So off to church where I sit and peacefully enjoy the meeting. My husband wasn't there because of other church responsibilities but my kids were all being really good so I was able to sit and quietly listen to the speaker thinking that life was pretty good. Then, due to this awful head cold I have had lately, I sneezed a big huge sneeze. At which point I heard a pop and all of a sudden my dress wasn't so tight around on my waist anymore. "Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap" that is what was going through my head as I reached over to where I would normally have felt a tightly closed side zipper, instead I felt a gaping hole "oh crap, oh crap, oh crap" what do I do, my zipper split and is splitting more buy the minute. Maybe if I stop breathing it won't split any more, okay that will only work for about 60 sec. My husband wasn't there and the meeting was almost over. So I pulled my sweater down and waited it out. After the prayer I quickly dropped my kids of at their primary classes while holding my dress together, by now you could see about two inches of control top pantie hose, jumped in the car and ran home to change clothes and get back to church for the rest of the classes.
As I was driving I thought "this does not happen to me, this happens to girls in fictional stories, or tv sitcoms". Then I started thinking back on my life to the time in third grade that I bent over, while at school, and my pants split up the middle. Or the time in fifth grade that I had the end of my pen in my mouth and it exploded all over my face, also while I was at school. Or the time when I was fourteen and I was running late to a church activity so I ran into my room, not bothering to turn on the light and grabbed my loafers out of the closet (yes it was the 90's and people wore loafers). When I was in the car I realized that I had grabbed one brown loafer and one black loafer. So anyway I figured no one will look at my feet anyway and it was an activity where bare feet were not an option. Things were going just fine until I was standing with a group of friends and completely lost my balance (seriously just standing there) and fell over, at which point one of the boys said "hey are you wearing two different shoes. Then there was the time I was sixteen, I got to first period and opened up my backpack to get my geometry book and what did I see, A DEAD MOUSE, I had briefly wondered why my cat was acting all funny around my backpack that morning. That one really freaked me out but I had to act like nothing was wrong while I asked my teacher if I could please go use the restroom. I am sure I was bright red and he probably thought I had just started my period because he gave me permission rather quickly. Then there was the time just a few years ago that I was walking outside minding my own business when a bird pooped right on my head, that was really disgusting. So after remembering all this I decided that I am either really clumsy, really cursed or both. I did decide for sure that I should not leave my house anymore. So start calling me a hermit and plan on traveling to Montana if you ever want to see me again.

I win, I win, I win!!!!!!!!

Take that Direct TV! Apparently all you have to do is threaten to cancel your account with them and they are suddenly very eager to give you your money. It was actually pretty funny. I sent an email to them saying how annoyed I was and that I wanted to cancel our services and what should I do to make that happen. Within a half hour I received an email from them with their "special" customer service number and a special pin I needed to use it. You see they finally saw that I meant business, thats right, don't mess with a pregnant woman. Really you think they would know better. So I called the "special" number with my secret pin, explained the situation and was offered a 100 dollar credit on our account effective immediately. The whole process took about 10 minutes, it was great. So the moral of the story is "threaten to take away your money and you get results". So I will no longer be calling Direct TV the evil empire anymore (that title can go back to the Yankees) but they are definetly on my watch list.

I hate direct tv

This post has nothing to do with pregnancy and everything to do with my anti-direct tv campaign. You see I HATE DIRECT TV!!!!!!!! Maybe this does have something to do with pregnancy because I generally don't hate companies with a passion, but man I do right now (blame it on the hormones). Anyway, we switched to Direct tv last summer because our phone company had a deal if we went with direct tv, some bundling thing. So that is great save a few bucks, couldn't be better. Well apparently when they hook up your receiver it costs a hundred dollars, but no worries you get the money back by filling our a simple rebate form. So I hunt down the form online and fill it out. Then I receive about 4 emails from them saying that it has all been approved and my check is in the mail. Well in August our life went crazy and we moved suddenly and I never got our check. Well in the last four weeks I have called Direct TV about 6 times trying to get our money. Each person I talk to has a different reason that I all of a sudden don't qualify for the money even though they all ready sent it to me and apparently it got lost in the mail. Then when I explain to them exactly why I should get the money all of a sudden they say "oh, of course, but we can't cut a check in this department, you will have to call this other person". Today someone told me I would have to track down the old check and that I should start by calling my post office. Who do they think I am, Sherlock Holmes! I am not Sherlock Holmes, I am a crazy emotional pregnant woman who wants her hundred dollars! The last person I talked to kept telling me how sorry he was but he couldn't do anything, I informed him that he wasn't sorry and then I told him what I thought of his company then asked him if it was worth losing our business over a hundred dollars (I was very tough and didn't even cry, pretty good for a pregnant lady). All he did was say "I'm sorry" over and over again like all of a sudden I wouldn't care if he kept saying it. It was like talking to a broken record. So we are going to switch back to dish tv because I am sooooooooo angry to be treated like that. It makes me wish that I could call people I owe money to, like the power company, and say I will not be paying you this month because your bill had blue and red lettering on it and I only pay bills that are written in orange and pink. Then when they kept asking me for money I would just say "I'm sorry" over and over again until they were ripping their hair out in frustration and decided to leave me alone. So anyway, I feel a little better now that I have vented, so thank you all for listening, and remember to spread the word about the evil empire known as Direct TV!

Happy 10 year anniversary, ya right.

So last week was our ten year wedding anniversary. Now most women love anniversaries and remember them fondly, but these women are not married to my husband. He is great, really he is, he sweeps, plays with the kids, earns a great income, doesn't ignore me for sports. These are all wonderful, but he doesn't have a romantic bone in his body. To him an anniversary is just another day. These are things he has said in the past on our anniversary. "I would have got you a gift but I was busy" once when our little boy was 2 weeks old and I had mastitis on our anniversary (which is about the most awful I have felt in my life), he got home from spending 10 hours on campus and said "happy anniversary here are your antibiotics, hahaha". Then there was the year that he thought going to see harry potter at the matinee was very romantic so lets go pick up the kids from the sitter. So as you can imagine we have gotten into a few slight tiffs on this day of days. So anyway this year he figured since he wanted to live he better make a big deal out of our ten year. So I have to give him credit he did great. Reserved a room for us at a bed and breakfast, took me out to a fabulously yummy dinner. The next morning we did some Christmas shopping and headed for the matinee after which we were going to go to a new restaurant for lunch. Oh and he even saw a chick flick for me. So anyway we are at the movie "Enchanted" and I am munching away on my movie theatre popcorn, because lets face it there is no way on earth I am going to make it from8:00 to 1:00 without food, when I start to feel sick. This is unfortunately pretty normal for me right now, that's right I am 13 1/2 weeks and I still feel nauseated every day. So as the movie goes on I am feeling more and more sick. Then there is this scene in the movie where rats are washing dishes with their tails, I think most people would think this was funny but I wanted to die, I had to close my eyes it was so disgusting to watch in the condition I was in. Anyway a few minutes later I was in the bathroom seriously considering getting rid of all the popcorn in me. These were my thoughts "oh my gosh I hate throwing up soooooo much" then "wait a minute my sister who is pregnant just threw up last week and assured me that morning sickness throwing up is much easier than stomach flu throwing up". I am trying to believe this but I have very fresh memories of the stomach flu last Christmas when most of the 25 people in my family got the stomach flu while we were all together, it was rather unpleasant but hey no one gained weight that Christmas, we all threw everything up or were too afraid eat for fear that we would be next. Any way these are my thoughts in the bathroom. Eventually it didn't matter what I thought cause my stomach was going to have nothing to do with that popcorn anymore. So I threw up then threw up more, and more, and more, and more, you get the picture, unfortunately. The whole time I was throwing up I kept thinking "my sister lied, this is as awful as the flu". I felt awful, my eyes were tearing like crazy, my stomach and throat hurt and my head started to pound and I only felt a little better. So after the movie when we were supposed to go out to our fun lunch I went home and took a nap and my husband picked up the kids. Later that day I figured I had a few more of those flu symptoms, so it wasn't morning sickness after all but the full blown stomach flu. So my sister probably is right about the morning sickness throwing up thing and I can tell you that having the flu while being pregnant is really not all that great. Also I think we are just not meant to have these great wonderful anniversaries, all though to be fair the dinner and bed and breakfast were great and my husband was so wonderful for the rest of the weekend to take care of everything so I didn't ever have to get out of bed. So maybe anniversaries and romance are overrated, or maybe we need to celebrate our anniversary on a different day of the year so the anniversary curse can't strike.

i am too tired for this!

What am I too tired for you may ask? I will tell you, my two year old! She is winning. You would think that since she is my third child I would be an expert by now, but no I am failing miserably. So I think I figured out why two year olds are so tough to deal with, I figured this out during the hour that I spent rocking her the other night when she wouldn't go to sleep (with one arm and one leg asleep so I was multi tasking). Anyway, during the average day I, as all mothers, have quite a bit to do. My to do list looks something like this: get up, feed everyone breakfast, make lunches, get everyone dressed, beds made and to school, clean up the house, do laundry (really how can three kids produce so much dirty clothes), play with my two year old, take care of any church responsibilities, pick up the kids, start dinner, look through homework, eat dinner, do dishes, bath time, and get the kids in bed. Oh ya and this time of year get everything ready for Christmas (that at least is fun). So that is more or less my average day. This is what my two year old has to do during the day, eat, play and GET HER WAY. She has much more time during the day to devote towards getting exactly what she wants. So while I am holding her in the rocking chair thinking of all the things I have to do while ignoring my tingling arm and leg, she is sitting there focusing all her attention on not falling asleep.
I keep telling myself that when she turns three it will all go away, this is only a terrible two thing right? But she turns three next week and she hasn't gone to bed before ten this week, and that is with no naps, she has also been just a tad bit grumpy this week.
My sisters two year old is also part of this evil movement of children whose goal is to destroy their mothers. She had her daughter completely potty trained for a week and then guess what. Her daughter changed her mind. If a kid isn't going to use the toilet there isn't much you can do about it. So my heart goes out to my sister who had a crushing loss in her battle last week. But mothers everywhere lets take up the call, "we will triumph, we will not give up, they will not win, we are bigger, smarter (I think), and we have chocolate any time we want to give us strength!!!!" so any way to all you out there who have two year olds, good luck!

And you think pregnant women are illogical?!?

This afternoon my husband and I were watching the BYU vs University of Utah football game. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the BYU world this is a HUGE rivalry. Especially if you are my husband and are convinced that every Ute is a spawn of the devil, even though we are friends with many of them and even related to a few. When we lived in New York there was one couple, who were very good friends of ours, who the husband had actually played football for Utah. It was a serious moral dilemma for my husband to be friends with him. Any way we are watching the game, having a very enjoyable time, when my husband turns to me with a very serious look and says "you know if we lose this game it is because you are wearing a red shirt right now" (Utah's colors are red and white). To which I replied "well what does that say about you since you married a woman with red hair". He didn't have a response, points Karen!!! So I think my thoughts like "I can eat all the pumpkin pie I want cause pumpkin is good for me" or "I am totally justified crying during a biscuit commercial" are way more logical than that.

sleep, what a wonderful thing

Last night the most amazing thing happened... I slept all night! No crying two year olds, no bed wetting 5 year olds, and no nightmares for 8 year olds. Most importantly I didn't have to get up to pee every hour like I have had to for the last month!!! I felt soooo good this morning. Instead of dragging myself out of bed and getting, you guessed it, angry at my kids. I found that I was actually cheerful and patient (these are attributes that I have not claimed for myself in a very long time). So even though I am still feeling slightly nauseous I feel like I have the energy to deal with it today, for now anyway who knows how I will feel in about ten minutes. It just makes me reflect on how weird pregnancy is. When you look at a pregnant woman symptoms like hunger make sense, sleepiness also after all it takes food and energy to have a baby grow inside of you. But the symptoms like nausea, constant peeing (when there is nothing pushing on your bladder yet), gas, oh and I find that I have to burp all the time when I am pregnant (much to my husbands disgust and my 6 year olds amusement). These things don't make sense to me. But I guess it is the way it is and I just have to remind myself that THIS IS THE LAST TIME. So anyway I am fairly happy today, I have energy and the comfort of my fat pants, nothing can stop me now!

goodbye vanity, i will miss you, or not

Well it has come to that time of pregnancy where vanity must go or I will become thoroughly depressed. What has pushed me to this completely non-feminine concept of having absolutely no vanity you may ask? Well there are a few things. First of all my pants don't fit anymore, I am in pants limbo. To big for my old pants but not big enough for maternity pants. That means it is time to pull out my old post baby, aka fat pants. Now there are two reasons that I need to put aside all vanity to wear these pants, first is the obvious that they are fat pants. Second is the fact that they are years old and most likely out of style, but who wants to spend money on stylish fat pants, not me. I would rather just give up my vanity and be comfortable if unstylish.
My next "give up vanity incident" happened when I was only 5 weeks along! I was at church and a sort of friend of mine came up to me and asked if I was pregnant "yes" I said wondering who had told her. Then she went on this monologue about how she couldn't tell if I was pregnant or just having a bad month! Her words not mine. Then realizing she had just totally insulted me she tried to cover it up with a backhanded compliment of "well usually you are sooo skinny". I just sat there and stared at her not quite believing she had actually said all that. Really, how do you respond to that, I could be honest and say "why did you just say all that to me, are you stupid or are you just trying to push me into a deep depression?" or I could go the self depreciating route and say "you are right, that grain of rice inside of me has made me poof out like the stay puff marshmallow". You see there is nothing to say to people like this. I would really like to return to my idea of a previous post and throw a book at her, but I can't, it is important for some reason to be "polite" to people even when they are rude to us, I guess I will just have to be the "bigger" person, hahaha I crack myself up.
Anyway my latest proof that I need to give up all vanity came from my two year old. I was getting out of the shower the other day and she came up to me, pointed to my rear end, and said "that's big" feeling that I needed to clarify before I burst into tears I pointed to the offending area and said "that's big?" to which she replied "yes, that's big" then walked out of the room. Well folks kids don't lie, so goodbye vanity i think i will miss you, but maybe not. I think it will be nice to not care for a while.

My son the hearthrob

This has nothing to do with pregnancy but my sister said it was funny and that I had to put it on my blog.


The other day I went to Ty's parent teacher conference. I was waiting a little early with some of the other parents and started talking to one of the other mom's. When I told her who my son was she said oh, my daughter Pilar likes him soooo much, she says he is her boyfriend. This reminded me of a time about a month ago when Ty had told me that one of the girls asked him to be her boyfriend, which Ty assured me he said a big loud NO to. So I told the other mom about this and asked if it had been her daughter. She said that it was her daughters friend who had asked Ty to be her boyfriend and that it caused her daughter to come home crying cause she was so upset with her friend. It was so funny, so I asked Ty that night very casually if he liked Pilar. He said"sure she is my friend" I asked if he played with her, he looked at me like I was crazy and said "no, I play with Connor". So it funny to me that the desperation of girls, and total ignorance of boys start at such a young age. It reminded me of when I was in kindergarten once, I was sitting by the "cute boy" during reading time and I started poking him. When he told me to stop it I said I would only stop if he sat by me on the bus, which he did. I remember being so happy on the ride home that day!

joys and concerns

The other day my kindergartner came up to me and said "mom, my joy is that I have basketball next week and my concern is that I hit my head on the wall in the shower" "okay" I said with a very confused look on my face. My 8 year old quickly explained that in his kindergarten class the teacher asks them every day if they have any joys or concerns. So now it made a lot more sense. So the other day his joys and concerns went like this "mom, my joy is that I have basketball in three more days and my concern is that I have to wait three days for basketball". He really likes basketball. So anyway it got me to thinking that maybe I should post some of my joys (since anger was getting a little depressing) so here goes. My big joy the other day was ... you guessed it, grocery shopping. Now this also brings up some concerns, namely the whole weight gain thing. I am ten weeks along and have gained 6 pounds, not bad but not good either. When I started out I had all these optimistic thoughts like "I will eat right, I will exercise every day" you read in those pregnancy books "you should only gain two pounds in the first trimester" whatever, who are these women who are only gaining two pounds. Whenever I read that I want to throw the book out the window, or maybe at one of those skinny pregnant women. Anyway, this post is supposed to be about my joys so I apologize for getting a little to "concerny". Anyway I had all these grand plans and ideas, then I started feeling sick a couple of weeks ago and it all went out the window. So I figure if you feel like puking every day you shouldn't have to feel guilty about anything. So I enjoyed my grocery shopping. I walked into super Walmart with a gleam in my eye, the whole store before me, yummy food ready to fall into my shopping cart and I indulged myself. Now all you normal non-pregnant people out there are probably imagining all sorts of delicacies falling into my cart (or as many delicacies as can be found at such an illustrious place as super Walmart) like fillet Mignon, king crab legs, spinach salads, and ben and jerrys ice cream. However it isn't like that, I am craving much different things. These are the items I was very excited about:

pop can crescent rolls
lunchables
frozen mini quiches
canned soup
sausage for breakfast burritos
frozen chinese food
cheap sandwich bread for toasting
frozen twiced baked potatoes (these are so good especially cause they are yummy microwaved so you don't even have to wait like with a lot of frozen food)

So I put all these things in my cart and I am just wishing it was dinner every night right away so that I could eat them all. It really made me very happy, so there is my latest joy. I hope I have brought some joy into your lives and encouraged you to give into a random craving, pregnant or not.

Anger part three

Well this is the last of my three part series on anger, and frankly I am glad as angry as I am all the time I do realize it isn't a good idea to focus on and remember that anger. However, seeing as how I have all ready started this "anger series" I am committed to finishing it. So I have saved the "best for last". What may you ask would make me more angry than kids not listening or the absence of Burger King fries? The answer is easy... MEN, more specifically my husband. Now the rational side of my brain knows that he is a great guy. We will be celebrating our 10 year anniversary this month and I have to say it has been a great 10 years. He is kind, helpful, a great father, fun to talk to, and he has even been known to skip a BYU football game just to go on a date with me. So like I said the rational side of my brain knows he is great. Then there is the pregnant part of my brain. I can't seem to get the rational part and the pregnant part to agree. I find myself sooooo angry with him a lot lately. Then I ask myself is this something that I should be mad about or is it crazy pregnant woman taking over. So I will give you my "angry situations" and let you be the judge.
Situation 1, the other day he had gone on a day trip to Billings, so 8 hours in the car and 4 more in meetings, now most people would hate a day like this but he loves driving by himself and eating fast food, so for him it is a great day. Meanwhile I am at home with my stinky two year old who is really quite a challenge lately, I mean it a kicking screaming non-sleeping challenge. Feeling all day sickness, cause it is not just morning sickness for me lately, I had also acquired a nasty body aching cold and I was of course super tired. So he gets home from his ideal day and the house is slightly, okay pretty messy, but I am just proud of myself for keeping the kids fed, clothed, and not strangled. So I tell him that I think I have some sort of virus cause I feel achy and awful and he says in a monotone voice "great". Then he starts walking around the house putting things away while slamming cabinet doors and such. I can tell he is upset so I carefully ask "how were your meetings" he says in the same monotone voice "fine", okay "did you have a nice drive, were the roads good?" "they were fine". By now I can't decide if I want to shoot fire out of my mouth at him or start crying. So I say very calmly, using my fine social working skills I learned in college "I feel like you are mad at me because I am sick" he replies "I am not mad at you cause you are sick" okay then "I feel like you are mad at me cause the house is messy cause I am sick" to which he replies "I am really trying here okay" which in my mind is a load of crap (excuse my crudeness) this just pushes me over the edge, but I know I shouldn't yell so I calmly reply "If this is you trying I would hate to be around you when I didn't try"then I walked out of the room and start putting the kids to bed. Woohoo, score one for the pregnant woman, I made my point without resorting to tears or giving in to the urge to throw things! Any way he was good a couple of minutes later he apologized and ordered me to be so he could finish cleaning the kitchen.
Situation 2, now this one is a double whammy cause it combines pregnancy with middle of the night tiredness. Now I have spoken of our difficult two year old in the past, well one of her stubborn things is that she doesn't like having a sleep schedule. Sometimes she even falls asleep at 4 in the afternoon, naps for 2 hours and then wants to stay up till one, if I try to wake her after 30 min she is a bear for the next hour. So it is hard to decide what to do. So anyway we had gone to bed at 10 putting her to bed at the same time. I was very tired at this point and fell asleep immediately. So at 11 Grace gets out of bed and starts crying a screaming that she wants to get up then she starts walking around turning on all the lights. I have woken up at this point and I knew Brad had also. But he just LAY THERE!!! I know he was waiting to see if I would get up! I was livid, so i said, while grinding my teeth "are you waiting for me to get up?". He got the picture real quick and said very annoyed sounding "no" and got up and took care of her. I mean really what is he thinking, that he needs sleep more than me right now. I swear sometimes I could just kill him. Then I start thinking he got me this way and then he acts like he is some pregnant wife martyr and that life is so hard for him but he can bear the pain as his lot in life. WHATEVER, stupid men. And all the little boys born out there will turn out just like them. When I went through pregnancy and delivery with my first child I remember calling my mom and telling her how much I appreciated that she had done that for me. I suggested that my husband do the same and call his mom, he looked at me like I was crazy. I realized that my son would never appreciate what I had gone through for him. So really forget them all, except when it all comes down to it and these nine months are over I think that I will probably love him again, but we will see.

Anger part two

I figure this anger thing had better be a three part series. There are too many things making me angry these days to put it all in one post. So anger number one was at my kids, all though I must say today we had a great morning and we were even ready a few minutes early, so my kids are pretty great sometimes. Anyway, anger number two is at you guessed it, franchises, namely Burger King. This specific event happened a couple weeks ago but it still makes me angry just thinking about it. Now I love Burger King french fries, they are so perfectly yummy better than any other fast food place. So I had been wanting these fries for about six weeks but had been denying myself cause I am trying not to overload on salt like I want to, and I really want to the other day I was making my husbands ham sandwich and I found myself wanting to lick my fingers just to taste the salt from the ham. I know it is not a moment I am proud of but it is true none the less. So anyway I had been denying myself the fries. It turned out that we had one of those days where we had tons of stuff scheduled in the late afternoon so it was pretty difficult to make dinner. Brad and Audrey had eye appts so I told them to just get fast food and that I would take the other kids to dinner. So finally I was going to give into temptation and get my french fries, I seriously looked forward to it ALL DAY. So I pick my other kids up from a party and head for Burger King, I passed every other food franchise on the way there and as I passed them I thought "nope, I want Burger King". So we pull up to Burger King, at which point my mouth was literally watering, and... IT WAS GONE! The building had been torn down! Apparently they are putting in a Walgreens and building a new Burger King in another part of town. I sat there in the parking lot in shock, how could this be, did the whole commercial world hate pregnant women. Now at this point you would say "why not just go to another Burger King" and for those of you who don't live in podunk little towns like me could do that, but for me to do that I would have to drive to the next town. Which I was very tempted to do except that my 5 and 2 years old were moaning about how hungry they were. So we went to McDonalds and I got their crappy substandard french fries. I bet that if I checked on the completion date of the new Burger King it would be June 8th, did I mention my due date is June 7th. Oh well, it really is for the best I guess, the title of this blog is "i will not gain 5o pounds" so I guess the no Burger King thing is a blessing in disguise.

ANGER

I find when I am pregnant I am much more emotional, big surprise there. But it isn't only crying it is everything, especially anger. I get angry very easily, kind of like the incredible hulk only not big and green, well not green anyway. So I guess I feel sorry for my family having to live with me lately, except if they wouldn't do stupid things I wouldn't get angry so really it is their fault. So here are the things that have made me angry lately. Number one, kids not listening to me. Every morning I am of course really tired but being a mom of school aged children I still must drag myself out of bed to get them ready for school. This is what has happened EVERY DAT this last week with my eight year old daughter Audrey, who I will tell you now has a long history of being very slow at doing things. When she is close to done eating her breakfast I say "okay audrey clear your dishes, brush your teeth, make your bed and get dressed" she says "okay mom" then i go to deal with my screaming two year old who seems to always be screaming lately for very rational things like someone left the room before her or tyler said good morning to her, or the earth was traveling around the sun. So anyway I deal with her for a few minutes then go back to check on Audrey's progress only to find her still sitting at the table playing with the leftover milk in her bowl. So I start to get a little bit angry "Audrey what are you doing" "oh sorry mom I forgot" at which point she gets up and clears her dishes. Meanwhile I go make my bed while my two year old screams at Audrey for walking down the stairs before her. When my bed is made I go downstairs to check on the progress, I find that Tyler, bless his heart he keeps me sane in the morning, is dressed with teeth brushed and bed made playing quietly in his room. Audrey meanwhile is sitting on her bed looking at a book, at least she has her pajamas off. "Audrey what are you doing" "Oh sorry mom I started looking at this book" at which point she wants to show and explain the book in great detail to me. "Audrey you can show me the book after school, you need to hurry or we will be late". Then I go get my two year old dressed after I let her walk up the stairs first. I come back down and hallelujah she is dressed and maybe by now her bed is made or maybe I have to remind her but we are making progress. Then she goes in to brush her teeth, now if you will remember at the beginning of this post when I gave the first direction of the morning, the same things I say every single blasted morning "brush your teeth" comes before "get dressed" somehow this is not heard correctly. It makes me wonder what they really hear when we moms talk I think they hear "Audrey you are wonderful and perfect, do whatever you want this morning" or maybe "mhhm, rrrrr, blblby, oijodfoe". She is definitely not hearing what I say, if she did I wouldn't have to scrub toothpaste off the front of her shirt every morning! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! By now we are almost late and I turn into the mean angry mom who is frantically yelling things like "get your shoes on, put on your coat, empty the rocks out of your shoes OUTSIDE, don't forget your backpack, do you think I like to yell, why do you make me yell to get anything done, don't forget your back pack, no the gloves go on first not last" etc, etc. I am not proud of myself in these moments, I am not a nice person to be around, but it gets them to school on time. I suppose I have vague memories of my mom sounding the same way before school but probably all I heard was "mhhm, rrrr, blblby, oijodfoe". Sorry mom.

Okay so maybe I will gain weight. The last couple of days have been hard for me, I have been feeling sick, which doesn't happen that often so I am mostly grateful. I have also been feeling super tired and like everything in life is overwhelming. So my house is a mess and when I step on the scale it is up 4 pounds. This had been distressing to me when I was feeling good, but I find that when I feel yucky I really don't care. So I think maybe on the days that I feel good I will worry about it and try to be really healthy and on the other days I am pretty sure I won't care a darn thing about it. I am only 9 weeks and I am showing. Since the baby is only 1 inch long I know it isn't the baby showing. All the books say that it is "bowel dissension" I really don't know what this means but it sounds really gross. Which brings me to my next topic of discussion, Why is pregnancy so gross? I mean really we all ready feel awful, get fat, get stretch marks, and have to pee in cups for months on end. Then all of a sudden words like bowel dissension, gas, and constipation are used in conversation with us constantly. This is just the beginning. I know when we come around to delivery I am going to end up practically naked in a big white room with a bunch of strangers watching me puff and groan. It really isn't fair. This baby had better be really cute.
Oh and i am still obsessed with food. Last night I had a dream that someone was eating a grilled cheese sandwich and they threw half of it in the trash. I was so mad in my dream. So after church I ate two grilled cheese sandwiches and they were soooooo yummy. I also had to speak in church today. Now for some reason in my first trimester I always have to pee all the time. So before church I make sure to go to the bathroom thinking that I will be ahead of the game. It was not to be. Literally one minute before I was supposed to get up to talk I had to pee SO BAD, I sat there thinking I am just going to have to suffer through this. It really was not fun. We also went on the youth temple trip yesterday. Now living in Helena we are 31/2 hours from the billings temple and there are a few big stretches of the drive where there is nothing but bushes for 1/2 hour at a time. So i went to the bathroom THREE TIMES before we left. With in an hour of leaving, and of course on one of these half hour stretches i had to pee sooooooo bad. I was really in pain. Pregnancy really isn't fair, but then I guess nothing in life really is. This baby better be really cute.

so now i have a blog

Well I have never blogged before because frankly my life is way too boring for anyone to want to read about. So what would make me blog now you ask? Really my reasons are selfish, I am hoping that a blog will help me. You see I am pregnant, woohoo, with my fourth kid. With pregnancies one, two, and three I gained 40, 45, and 50 pounds and my kids weighed 7, 8, and 9 pounds. So if you know anything about patterns, and I know a lot due to my kindergartner's papers he brings home, it would appear that I will gain 55 pounds and have a 10 pound baby. That is a little bit overwhelming for me so I am looking for ways to control my eating. This is where I run into another problem, pregnancy makes me sooooooo hungry. I obsess over food. Right now is the world series and anyone who knows my husband Brad knows that if there is baseball we will watch it. Anyway as often happens during sporting events all the commercials are for alcohol, razors (all these adds feature razors that fly through the air and scantily clad women feeling men's smooth faces), cars, and of course food. So after about the fifth food commercial where I said "that looks so good", this one was for a huge plate of steaming nachos that really looked super yummy, my husband Brad turned to me and said "you are obsessed with food" which is kind of sad cause that is the exact same thing my sister Leslie said to me the day before. So how can a blog help me not gain 50 pounds you ask? Well I am hoping that if I write about it and see the words before me it can be one little thing that will help me have a little more self control, plus maybe it will help me get advice from other people too. So anyway I have now written my first blog, hope you aren't all asleep, unless it is one in the morning and you are reading this too put you to sleep, and if that is the case, you are welcome.