Hooray!!!! She is here!!!!

Well it finally hapened, my sweet little baby girl was born. I guess I shouldn't say finally since she was 13 days early, but since she weighed in at 8 pounds 10 ounces I sure am glad she was as early as she was. Let me tell you she is perfect! I am so happy to have her, having a new baby is soooooo much better than being pregnant. Labor and delivery went really well, all except the part where my epidural just stopped working when I was at 8 centimeters and going through the transition stage, I really wanted to die, but when it came to pushing all it took was one and a half pushes and she came right out. No pain, no stitches, it was great. It is funny to me that once you get pretty good at the whole labor and delivery thing you are done having kids. I wish it was the other way around, delivery getting harder each time. Then when you got to the 4th you would for sure know that you were done with it all. Really though we are done, but it does make me sad. Holding your brand new baby up against your chest while she sleeps is really one of the most wonderful feelings in the world, and since I was feeling so awful at the end I find that I am sleeping much better now and I feel much more rested durring the day. I really am soooo much happier now. I can bend over, I can breathe, I don't have crazy weird feelings, and I have a sweet little baby to hold and hug and kiss and just plain love to death. So thanks to you all for listening to me complain my head off these last nine months. Oh and yes all my kids had that much hair, and yes my husband has dark hair. These are questions I have answered on a daily basis with each of my previous three children, they all have hair like this, in fact she actually has less than the last two had.

false labor

well it happened to me, every woman's nightmare, going to the hospital thinking you are in labor and then being sent home. Really it is just the perfect "almost ending" for a really piss you off kind of pregnancy (excuse the language but I am soooo freakin grumpy). Well I have been having tons of contraction all week, at my appointment on Tues I was dilated to an almost three and 80% effaced, but I really knew that all the contractions weren't real. However, at about 2 o'clock this afternoon I started to just feel not good, kind of sick but just not right and then boom contractions every three minutes, you could have set your clock by it. So after about 40 min I think to myself these aren't hurting terribly bad, but I just don't think you can ignore contractions three min apart, plus I was having lots of pressure down "there". So I call my doc and give the nurse all the details, so she says I better go in to the hospital. So I call my husband and he heads home, it was of course right the time that I needed to get my kids from school but my mother in law said she could grab them on her way over so all I needed to do was wait for everyone and try to get my three year old to stop screaming at me. So my husband gets home and we sit and wait for my mother in law, and wait some more. My husband is getting anxious cause he has the number one fear of all husbands of pregnant women, not that the baby will have problems, or that his wife is going to be hurt (all though those are huge fears of all husbands), but the fear that he will have to deliver the baby himself. I tried to tell him to calm down cause all though my contractions were still coming 3 min apart they weren't hurting nearly bad enough to get a baby out. I just kept saying "hon, I am not yelling, screaming, crying, or moaning we have a while to go before she comes out". Besides I told him I knew they would take a while to get home cause as I have posted about in the past our eight year old is notoriously slow. To which he said "if I have to deliver this baby cause she is slow then she is so off my list of favorite kids". So anyway they eventually get there and off the kids go happily to Grandma's house and off we go anxiously to the hospital. Now at this point my husband asks if I am nervous and I honestly reply that I am not, cause I really don't know if this is real labor. Now you would think that by my fourth kid I would know when I am in labor, but you see previous to today I have been one of those really lucky women whose water has broken before I went into labor. When your water breaks you just know it is going to happen it is great, they can't send you home. All though with my first they did try to send me home. You see my water broke as I was walking to the hospital with a big gush, really it was just like the movies. It felt like I had just broken a water balloon between my legs. So we went to the hospital and the nurse that checks you in just didn't believe that my water had broken cause apparently right after it did my daughter jammed her big head into the birth canal so that no more water leaked out. It took me quited a while to convince the nurse that yes my water did break and no I didn't just pee my pants. Really she checked me with an ultrasound machine and didn't believe me then had to use some of that ph paper which I guess was the last one in the box and old so didn't work but I refused to go home so she opens a new box and checks again and said "oh ya your water did break", stupid nurse. So anyway having your water break on its own is nice and because it has happened before I just don't know what it is like to go into labor the good old fashioned contraction way. So we get to the hospital, get all checked in and get wheeled up to the maternity floor and into the room where they check you to see if you are really in labor or if you are so desperate to get that baby out that you are faking it hoping you can trick them into inducing you. Then we just sit there and wait for about half an hour. I really didn't mind waiting cause my contractions weren't hurting to bad and I don't know anyone who is super excited about putting on one of those lovely hospital gowns. So about a half hour later the nurse comes in and her first question is "do you feel like you need to push" which seems like the dumbest question in the world to me. I can guarantee if I had been needing to push for that last half hour I so would not have been sitting quietly in the intake room. Then it made me wonder if there are women out there who are so tough that they can sit there quietly while they dilate all the way to ten waiting patiently for someone to find the time to come see them, if there are women like that I don't want to hear about it! So I say no, change into my stylish gown and get hooked up to the monitor. At this point what do you think happened, if you guessed that my contractions went cold turkey on me you are right. They pretty much stopped. I went from every three min to two in twenty min. I don't think I have ever been more angry at my uterus, and let me tell you have spent a lot of time angry at my uterus lately. So after twenty min she tells me to get up to walk around for an hour. So we walk and immediately I have a big old contraction then they keep coming every three min again, and better yet they start to hurt, not super painful but enough to remind me why women love epidurals. Then I meet my doctor, you see when you "go into labor" on memorial day weekend the chances of having your actual doctor deliver you are very small, you are probably going to get the on call doctor. Which my docs office has started to share their call rotation with another office so not only do I not get my doc, but I get a doc I have never even laid eyes on. However, I didn't really care cause he said two wonderful things to me, one that he doesn't care when I get an epidural, and two that if I can just get to four centimeters he would do whatever was needed to get things moving along. So I immediately fell in love with him and wondered how I had lived my life so far without him. My contractions were coming pretty regular and getting harder so I thought no prob, I can get to a four. So after an hour of walking and walking I was getting tired and it was time to be checked again, so what do you suppose happens the min they put the monitors on, that is right nothing happened, all of a sudden my contractions are 7 min apart and don't hurt and while I was now totally effaced I was still only at a three. I was tired and so mad and felt like a stupid idiot for coming into the hospital with false labor. The nurse was really nice and kept telling me that it could be pre labor and that I would be back the next day but really there is nothing you can say to a woman in this situation. My poor husband was just really quiet and looked kind of afraid of me at this point. As we were walking out of the hospital I had my hardest contraction yet. I just thought "how come I am having pain and walking away from the hospital". So I came home and got into bed at 8 and now I am up at midnight venting my heart out in a blog. Oh and another annoying part of all this was that we missed a church activity tonight that I was of course in charge of and now I am going to have to go to church on Sunday and deal with all the "I thought you had your baby", "what are you doing here", "that is a good way to get out of your church responsibility" and so on. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I am so annoyed! I have really always felt so bad for all those women out there who deal with the get sent home from the hospital thing, and now that I have joined your ranks I feel really bad for myself!

you know you are DONE when...

So I was reading one of the many pregnancy advice books out there
and there was a section talking about the signs that labor could be soon.
Like contractions are so far apart, you have lost your plug, etc. So I
started thinking about the real signs for us women that are sooooo ready to be
done with it all. So here goes

You know you are done with pregnancy when

10. You cry every day, but for different reasons each time.
The other week I really did cry every day. These are some of the reasons I cried.
Once cause I was so flippin tired I just couldn't help it. One
day I was reading a magazine about delivery and there was a part that said
when the baby is born she will cry because she is cold and not used to the
bright lights. I started crying my eyes out cause it made me so sad to think that my baby
would be cold. One day I cried because I was absolutely convinced that no one, not even my husband would lift a finger to help when the baby was born (which I know isn't true but that day I was sure of it). One day I cried cause I was sure that I hated my husband so much and then ten minutes later I was crying cause I love him so much and couldn't imagine my life without him. Then of course there was the day I looked through my other three kids scrap books, I for
sure cried my eyes out that day.

9. You are convinced that you really would sleep more once the baby was out of you and waking you up every three hours cause right now either your bladder or you pinched nerve in your arm is waking you up every hour and a half.

8. You can't tell people you were tossing and turning after a bad night sleep, instead you have to say "I was slowly and painfully shifting and rolling all night".

7. You feel so much pressure "down there" that you are convinced the baby is just trying to fall out of you.

6. You find yourself walking through Walmart giving your uterus a pep talk that if your water would just break you could be done with this, you are wondering if you focus hard enough on your water breaking if it will happen, mind over matter and all (I really did do this and unfortunately it turns out that I don't have any special mind powers where my uterus is concerned).

5. While you are at Walmart and you walk past the optometry department you wonder if you offered enough money if the optometrist would break your water.

4. When the optometrist says no you find yourself in the craft section looking at crochet hooks wondering if you could break your water yourself (I had my water broken with my last baby and that is really what they use, a big long plastic crochet hook and a rubber glove).

3. You find yourself avoiding all social functions because you just don't want to hear IT any more. By IT (I am definitely not referring to Bill Clinton's definition of the word) I mean "wow you have gotten big all of a sudden" (I really am measuring big now but do you think I want to hear it), "how much longer", "you know it is easier to take care of them now then when they come out" (have any of you ever known a woman who after she had her baby said "gee I wish this baby was still inside of me"), and my most hated comment "you look so cute" even if you think it I disagree completely and I DON'T want to hear it, any of it!

2. Your maternity clothes that when you hold them up look big enough to hold a three ring circus don't fit when you try to put them on.

1. And finally, you know you are done when you wish the mild contractions you are having every day would start to hurt. I mean really who wants to have something hurt them, but I find that all these mild contractions annoy the heck out of me. I just want to scream "EITHER START HURTING AND GET THIS BABY OUT OF ME OR JUST GO AWAY AND STOP TEASING ME". Last month I was reading a book about labor just so I could brush up on all the awful things that were going to happen to me, and after reading the chapter and remembering it all I felt kind of sick and had no desire to do any of it. Now however I am sooooo looking forward to it and welcoming it with open arms. I swear I will gladly go through it all just so I can get this baby out of me and see my toes again.

So there is my list, if any of you can think of any I have forgotten please post it in the comments after so I know what else to watch for.

it is 4:50 am and all is NOT well

I am really tired, but here I am writing a blog. Is it because I am so devoted to blogging and getting the real life experiences of a crazy pregnant woman out there for the world to see? No, it is because of my stupid nerves, and when I say nerves I am not referring to the stage fright kind, I mean come on what pregnant woman is afraid to sleep. Next to toaster waffles sleep is my best friend. No I can't sleep due to those little nerve endings found throughout the body. Well apparently there are a lot of these nerve endings in the armpits and the nerves in my right armpit have decided to take exception to having the life squeezed out of them by swollen lymph nodes, increased blood flow through the blood vessels and the increased size of other parts of my body if you get my drift. So this is how pretty much every night goes. I go to bed around nine because I am super tired, then about two hours later I wake up for the first bathroom trip and and this point my arm is usually numb, not asleep and pins and needley, but numb. So I get back in bed, prop my pillow under my arm and go back to sleep. Around two I usually wake up for my next bathroom trip and my arm has moved on to a dull pain which is usually alleviated by walking around a bit and getting a drink. Then four o'clock comes and the misery starts. This is when I am woken up not by my bladder but by the burning pain felt all throughout my right arm. So I try the usual go to the bathroom, get a drink. When I get back in bed and lay on my side, apparently laying on the side puts all the wrong pressure on the nerves, and boom the pain is back immediately. So I try propping my assortment of pillows around me in different configurations, sticking my arm straight above my head, hanging my arm off of the side of the bed. I have even thought of trying to hang something from the ceiling that would hold my arm up in the air, kind of like when a broken leg is in traction. Nothing works! So I bawled my head off about it to my doctor the other day cause I am sooooo tired! She referred me to a physical therapist saying they might have some exercises I can do to make it feel better, but as much as I complain I think I will just tough it out. Seeing a physical therapist means making an appointment and organizing baby sitting, so in other words it means making an effort which I am so not good at right now. Plus the good news of the whole appt is that they are going to induce me a week early since I have gigantor babies so now instead of having 3 weeks and a couple of days left I have 2 weeks and a couple of days left. That seems a lot more doable on no sleep. I do find that I am looking forward to having the baby cause I really think I will sleep better. I also think I need to start taking naps whenever I get a chance whether it is 9:30 AM or 5:00 PM. I mean I am having a baby I should just say goodbye now to a normal sleep schedule, and that is why I am blogging at 5 AM.

could i get away with...

The other day I was at Walmart and after I checked out I ran my credit card and sat and waited for it to process. I looked at the little screen and it said "give card to cashier to check signature" so pretty standard procedure every couple of visits or so. So I went to reach for my card when the cashier just pushed the button gave me my receipt and said have a nice day. So I figured he just didn't feel like taking the time to check. So I went on my merry way limping out of the store, oh did I mention I pretty much walk with this combination limp shuffle or liffle now. You see nobody warned me when I was dating and deciding who to marry that I should pay attention to the head size of the guy I wanted to be with. You see we Davis's all have HUGE heads. Really in high school and college a lot of girls would be all flirtatious and take a boys hat and wear it around, well I could never do that cause my head was so big. Most guys hats just kind of rest on the top of my head, kind of like a beanie. So when I started dating my husband and amazingly his hats fit my head my mom should have warned me right away not to marry him because I would have very large baby heads to cart around inside of me and to attempt to push out of my body. So anyway this large headed baby of mine was causing me to do my liffle out of Walmart when I set off the security beeper as I walked out the door. So I stopped and realized immediately that it was the baby monitor I had just bought. I turned around and looked at the greeter to explain, she took one look at me and said "go ahead, don't worry about it". So I turned around and left. As I was liffling out to my car I realized I was getting some extra special treatment because I am sooooooo pregnant. I mean I had a full cart of bags, I could have stolen an I Pod, some drugs, a small tv, and lots and lots of cookies, but because I was pregnant somehow I am more trustworthy and less likely to steal stuff. Maybe they figure I am so slow I could never get away. So as I was driving home it hit me, what am I thinking telling people I am fine when they ask when really I want to scream. I have given up my body for 9 months, I should be taking advantage of any and all "fringe benefits" I can get. I thought I should speed everywhere I go and take all traffic laws as suggestions. If I get pulled over I can just say sorry I wasn't paying attention cause I was having a contraction. Or I could steal whatever I want and if I do get caught, which apparently isn't likely to happen, I could just play dumb and say I didn't realize I hadn't paid for it cause I am so busy thinking of this baby that is about to come out of me, or if all else failed I could just start crying. I find that there are few people who are immune to a woman who is pregnant and crying, it is like a combination knock out punch. Then I really got to thinking. You see my little sister is also pregnant right now, she is about 6 weeks behind me. Anyway she is about 5 feet tall and is super cute, young looking, and has huge blue eyes. I think she got pulled over about 150 times in high school and would just well up some tears in those big blue eyes and she NEVER got a ticket! So anyway I think the two of us could team up and knock off some banks and jewelry stores. Think about it who would suspect two pregnant women, one of whom is really little and cute (obviously my sister) and the other who walks with a liffle and is HUGE (obviously me) knocking off a bank in a white minivan. For added measure we could bring along my darling three year old daughter to distract the security guards while my sister and I collect the money then we could speed off into the sunset where if we got pulled over we could just pretend that we were both in labor. It is a fool proof plan!

HOW DARE YOU!!!!!

So I made the mistake the other day of looking at a website that showed diagrams of what the baby looked like inside the mommy week by week. So I rapidly clicked on week 34, week 35, 36, and so on until 40. Let me tell you it was not a good idea. At week 34 the baby looked pretty squished (and I can assure you that it is by the way that I feel right now) and then it kept getting worse and worse. I think I was probably a little pale at this point as I was realizing what is going to happen to me. That is when my husband came in the room and I told him what I had just looked at and that I was afraid, to which he replied "you have done this three times before why are you surprised". Ah the voice of reason. Really when is he going to learn that reason goes out the window the minute two lines appear on that test. So I say that ya I have done it before and that I had forgotten and that if you didn't forget the world would not be populated right now. So for all you women out there who are thinking of getting pregnant AGAIN let me tell you that my ribs hurt to the point that I walk around with my back arched hoping to make more room then I end up with a back ache. Also maternity clothes are getting too small for me so they are constantly uncomfortable and I am living in a state with the longest winter EVER so I can't wear any of my dresses or skirts which are much more comfy. Oh and lately every night my arm falls asleep and is constantly waking me up, that is when I am not being woken up by the need to use the bathroom three times a night. Then there is the constant ache in my lower belly and my ligaments (I feel like a barbie that can just have her legs easily snapped off at the hips). The baby is sitting so low that crossing my legs is not possible and really I just want to sit with them sprawled open which really doesn't work too well at church. My hands and feet puff up without any notice and I am really running low on energy. I am hungry all the time but sick of cooking, oh and I would give ANYTHING to be able to sleep on my tummy, I miss that so. So if that last paragraph isn't good birth control I don't know what is.
It is kind of funny cause two weeks ago I was really feeling pretty good, comfortable, lots of energy. So it makes me pretty sure that this little baby of mine has gained 3 pounds in the last week. Now a couple of pounds may not seem like a lot until you relate it to something. Like the website I read saying a 4 pound baby is about the size of a cantaloupe. Then I think of my first daughter who was 7lb 10oz and I think I had two cantaloupes in me plus a placenta, water, and an umbilical cord. My son who was 8lb 8 oz would be two cantaloupes and 3 bananas and my third kid who weighed in at a whopping 9 lbs 2 oz was a watermelon, really watermelons are that size. I remember they gave her a little pink shirt that said "I was born at St. Pete's" and it kept rolling up her fat belly because it was too small, it was soooo cute. So anyway the rapid increase of my belly recently has made me very fearful of having an even bigger baby, so I have decided to ask my doc tomorrow what her policy is on inducing early (on a side note my babies have all come early and still been big pieces of fruit). So I am hoping that she will say "sure I will induce you a week early". The interesting thing is the reactions I get from others when I tell them I want to do this. What is it about pregnancy and babies that makes people SO JUDGEMENTAL. I had one friend talking about another saying the girl had been induced early and she just didn't see why anyone would do that (oh course she has all her babies three weeks early so I don't think she has room to talk). So when I told her that I was going to ask my doc about it she just said "oh". Then my sis was telling me about a blog she had read about women who feel that they are judged badly by others because they bottle feed instead of breastfeed. Then there are the total strangers out there who stop me in the store and ask me how much milk I am drinking to make sure that I am treating my baby right. We pregnant women get judged for not exercising, for exercising too much (I so don't fall into that category), for having an epidural or going natural, really the list goes on and on. I wish I could say that we are only judged by men who don't know or people so old they have forgotten, but unfortunately I see women who have had babies recently themselves giving pregnant women the hardest time. Why does this happen? Maybe it is because we think everyone should do it our way cause if they do it different and it works out that means that we have somehow done it wrong. Or maybe we feel such a huge sense of responsibility towards our own children that we feel we have to watch out for all the children out there too. Who knows why, but I hope I can learn from these experiences and support all pregnant women out there. Except I will always take exception to women who smoke when they are pregnant, cause come on that one is pretty obvious! So anyway that is my little soap box for the day, or one of them anyway, I am in my last month anger and outrage come easily to me, teehee!

FAT

Well somewhere in the last two months it happened. I got fat. I have not gained 50 pounds, and I don't think I will, so I am not completely depressed... but I am definitely fat. How did this happen, I was doing so well. For the times I wasn't doing well the pneumonia and multiple bouts of stomache flu kept me on track. I wonder... could it be the mint chocolate ice cream, maybe the oreo cookies, then there was that cheesecake that one time (man that was good). So really the culprit is that sometime in the last two months I officially got my sweet tooth back, and I think it felt like it had some catching up to do. Now some of you out there will be like my husband and say "you're not fat your pregnant". Well that is a nice thing to say, but I am not carying the baby in my rear end and that part of my body has grown faster than my belly. So these are the ways I have been forced to end my denial and realize that I have truly gotten fat. Ironically I don't know that I am fat from stepping on the scale because quite honestly I avoid that like the plague. When I see my scale I usually nudge it under the counter, put it in a closet, or try and flush it down the toilet, but it always comes back. The times that I am forced to step on the scale (dr. office) I have a list of excuses that pop into my head before the nurse stops tapping that stupid weight continuosly to the right (just once I would like that weight to be tapped to the left). Like "wow I am retaining 10 pounds of water", or "oh no I shouldn't have worn my lead underware today". On a side note as uncomfortable as it can be to get swollen I am pretty sure all pregnant women are greatful for the whole water retention thing so they can always have that excuse at weighing time. So no the scale doesn't tell me I am fat. One way I know that I am fat is that my children have told me. My three year old is really into that size comparison thing from watching kids shows. So these days if something is small she says it is little like her and if something is big she says "that is big, like mommy", never that something is big like daddy. Then there is my eight year old who said the other day "mom, it is a good thing you are pregnant or I would think you are really fat". We all know that kids don't lie, so I have to accept their words as truth. Another way that I know I am fat is that my maternity clothes are not tight on my belly, but some of them are sure tight on my legs. Also if I kneel down on the floor it feels like there is something wedged between the back of my legs and my calves, this is not too comfortable, so when I look to see what this offending material is so that I can remove it I realize "oh ya, that is just my fat and unfortunately it can't be removed easily". I was making my bed the other day and I noticed there is definitely an indentation in the matress at my hip butt thigh area, it was not a pretty sight. It reminded me of a Simpsons episode where someone invades their house and the thing that Homer is most horrified about is that they ruined his "butt groove" on his couch (they used a different word on the show but I try to keep things clean) so I, like Homer, have a butt groove and any comparing of one's body to Homer Simpsons means that you are officially fat. I also realized that I have deffinite signs of fat old man syndrome, you know every time a fat man gets up he has to pull his pants up (which my husband pointed out we are grateful they do), well whenever I stand up I have to give my pants that tug, and not just a little tug but a tug in the front, the back and on the sides of my pants.
This whole pregnancy thing really isn't fair. We women give up so much for these children, our figures, our sanity, our ability to have a normal adult conversation or to leave the house with just a cute little purse. What do we get in return... no sleep, blow out diapers, cholic (for us and the baby) oh ya and a cute addorable little baby (so ya I know it is totaly worth it). So this time around rather than get depressed about the fattness I have decided to embrace it. I LOVE MY FAT!!!!!!!!! Okay so maybe that is a lie. I am trying to not let it get to me and just accepting it as part of what my body does when I am pregnant. The other night my husband was reading the paper on line and there was a bunch of articles on pregnancy so he says "do you want to know how many women gain 40 or more pounds in pregnancy?" so I say sure thinking the number will make me feel better about myself. So he clicks on the link and is silent for a moment and says "are you sure you want to know?". So I say "just tell me" 20%!!!!!! Can you believe it!!!!! My first reaction was to cry or to throw something (it seems these days my first reaction is always to throw something). So I only have 20% of pregnant women out there to keep me company in my fatness, whats the deal? But then I remebered the whole "not overreacting deal of it being part of my pregnancies blah blah blah". So I nonchalantly said "oh that is interesting". Really who cares, I only have six more weeks out of this and as long as I get a healthy baby I will be okay with a bunch of extra fat thrown into the deal (but really I am almost positive that it is ALL WATER).

the unintended consequences of pregnancy

You know how in life there are often times you do something and then something totally unexpected happens because of it. Well I have been pregnant 3 times before this so you would think that I would know everything to expect, the sickness, backaches, hip soreness, inability to breathe, general grumpiness, etc. Well with this pregnancy I was hit with another one. I was driving my eight year old daughter to her piano lessons when out of right field, boom, she hits me with this question "mom, in the olden days how did women know they were pregnant?" I just sat there.... uh uh stall stall. "Hmm" I thought as I prayed that the light would quickly turn green, "how do I answer this in a sweet innocent way". So lamely I said "I don't have time to tell you since we are almost there so I will have to tell you later", I know avoidance. So I went home and told my husband and we tried to think of anyway to answer this question without flat out lying with something corny like "the stork sent them a letter telling them so" (which probably wouldn't work on her since she figured out the whole Santa Claus/Easter Bunny thing a long time ago) or having "THE TALK"!!!!!!!! Now some of you smart ladies out there who all ready have kids are saying right now "wait a minute how did you avoid baby questions with your last baby when she was five"? To all of you I say "good question". You see it is a lot easier to give a very innocent watered down answer to a five year old, cause at that point in a child's life they are nice and sweet and think their parents know everything. So when I was preg with #3 and she asked how the baby got inside me I just said "daddy put it there" and she was just fine with that answer. When my sister's little boy asked how her baby was going to get out she just told him "mommy has a hole down there that the baby comes out of" (I think I got that right, she can correct me in the after comments if she would like) and her son was fine with that. However, that kind of stuff doesn't work now because sometime in the last 3 years she has figured out that we don't know everything. Probably because half the questions she asks me I have to answer "I don't know" to. I mean how are we parents supposed to know all this, I have my degree in social work not physics, zoology, astronomy, or biology. So of course kids feel fine asking how hot the sun is, how can you tell the difference between different dinosaur bones, why don't sharks ever stop swimming, and I just say I don't know, but the minute she asks me the five stages of grief I will have the answer! (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance, see I really do know). So anyway this brings me back to the whole point of this blog which is that we figured it was time for THE TALK!!!!.
So I sat down alone with her and told her I was going to answer her questions she had been having about babies. Then I asked her if she knew what sex was to which she said yes. So I asked what she thought it was to which she replied "love" to which I replied "no, sex is not love" then I told her basically what it was, to which she replied "gross" with a horrified look on her face. Then we talked about how this related to making babies and that led to the whole description of what a period was to which she had an even more horrified look on her face and said "that's scary". So I tried to calm her fears and say it was all normal to which she said "can we talk about something else now". So I tried to hurry and wrap things up by hitting hormones, body changes, and how someday she would want to have sex but to WAIT UNTIL SHE WAS IN LOVE AND MARRIED. To which she agreed, of course I thing she would have agreed to having her teeth drilled without Novocaine if I would just stop talking. So anyway I have now passed one of those major parenting hurdles and I can honestly say it was way worse for her than it was for me and for the first time in recent history my daughter who is usually full of questions had her lips shut tight.
It was funny cause it made me think back to when I learned all this wonderful stuff. I remember in first grade I had a friend tell me what sex was and I absolutely didn't believe her, not even a little bit. Once in kindergarten I was playing at my friends house and she told me that french kissing was when you put your tongue in someone else's mouth. I didn't believe her so we went down stairs and turned on the tv to whatever day time soap was on and carefully studied the kissing to see where the tongues were, and sure enough there were tongues in mouths! I was horrified and thought it was the grossest thing in the world. When I told my husband this story he said he was glad I had gotten over it (he can be a funny boy). I honestly don't remember if my parents ever had THE TALK with me. They very well could have and I have just repressed it to the deep dark reaches of my subconscious, which is what I think my daughter has been doing today.

the secret underworld of doctor's staff meetings

As I was at the doctor's office yesterday trying to pee in a little cup, and trying is the important word here, I had a vision of a doctors office staff meeting and this is how it went.

evil doctor- "okay everyone lets start the meeting, what was on last months agenda"
neurotic receptionist- "let's see (looks at notes) oh ya the same thing that is on every agenda, what can we do to make these visits even worse for a pregnant woman."
evil doctor- "that's right, now everyone needs to do their part. Reception what efforts are you making?"
neurotic receptionist- "We make sure to have them stand and wait at our clear glass window while we laugh with each other for about two minutes before we open it and check them in, and then we make sure the only magazines in the waiting room are trashy, boring, and out of date."
evil doctor- "Good, nursing what are you doing?"
sadistic nurse- "(with an evil laugh) We have soooo much fun. First we make them wait at least 15 minutes before we call them in, then we set all the scales 5 pounds heavier than they really are, then we make sure to walk through all the hallways really fast so they have to hurry to keep up with us which they can't do cause they are big fat pregnant ladies (another evil laugh). Oh and when we weigh them we make sure to not say a thing but to LOOK really judgemental as we write the number down."
evil doctor- "all that is really good, but lets try to think of more. Ultrasound, what are you doing"
ultrasound technician- "we tell them they have to get here with a full bladder then we make them wait 30 minutes for their appt, then we push really hard on their bladders during the exam. Oh and you know how everyone says a pregnant woman shouldn't be on her back, and we all know how uncomfortable that is for her, well we make her lay on her back the whole time!"
(high fives are given throughout the room)
evil doctor- "good keep up the good work. Lab how are your efforts going?"
lab worker- "well we just put in an order for even smaller cups to collect urine samples with so those last 6 visits where she can't even see down there will be nearly impossible, oh and we put really fat markers in the bathroom and have told her to write even more information on the small cup with it like her name, b-day, pet's names and shoe size."
sadistic nurse- "oh make her write her weight on there too, she will get really depressed at that."
lab worker- "good idea"
evil doctor- "okay, from the doctor side our efforts are of course to make her wait in the exam room for at least 15 min with nothing to look at but posters of how she will look when she is 10cm dilated, then when we listen to the heart beat we will put way too much of the goo on her belly, oh and we will make sure it is cold, then we won't wipe it all off. Oh and at the end of pregnancy we will get her hopes up in the last two weeks by saying "any day now" when really we know she will go over due. So lets all have a great month of torturing these women, and remember if you can think of any reason at all to make them come in for an extra visit go for it!"

So that was my vision, really though I do love my doctor, she is great and most everyone in the office is really nice. But I hate peeing in that cup and stepping on that scale so it gets me in a bad imaginative mood. Anyway whoever said pregnant woman were rational (has anyone ever said that) was dead wrong!

thoughts on infertility

I have been in a rather somber mood today so you aren't going to get any of my angry tirades on pregnancy, motherhood or men. Instead I have been thinking about infertility. Why you ask? Well, like everyone else I have known quite a few people who are effected by it. My parents were brave enough to have 6 daughter and of the 6 of us 3 have had no problems having kids and the other three have had big problems. My oldest sister got things figured out about 4 years ago and she now has an adorable 3 year old little boy. My sister just younger than me dealt with about two years of waiting, taking tests, changing doctors and figuring out that it just wasn't going to happen on its own. So in Oct (I think) they put out the big bucks to pay for invitro fertilization with ICSE (look it up) and now she is due 6 weeks after me. So I am sooooo happy for her. Then there is my youngest little sister. She is coming up on two years of trying and in that time she has had three miscarriages, multiple doctors, lots of medications, thousands of dollars of tests, and this last week surgery. Apparently her uterus isn't the shape it needs to be so they went in and made it the right shape. The hard thing is that every time they do something with her no one is 100 percent sure that it is the answer. So we are all really hoping and praying that this will be the thing that will work. So anyway I just feel so admiration for my sisters, friends and all the women out there who go through this. I really see a lot of strength in them that I don't have myself. As much as I complain about pregnancy and kids (and if you read this blog you know I can really get going) I really do love my kids and I am so grateful that I am pregnant right now. I am starting to get excited to have another cute little girl. I am pretty sure that she will be cute because all my babies have been IDENTICAL, really it is like I am a human Xerox machine. The only difference is that each one comes out will more hair. I had a dream last night that I had had the baby, but I couldn't remember how old she was, or when I had her, or what her name was. In the dream she was so big and I was upset cause I couldn't remember how she was as a newborn or what had led up to her getting to be that size. So do you think I am having a little anxiety about this being my last one. It is weird, or maybe it is normal, cause I know I am ready to be done with the whole pregnancy thing, and my husband and I both feel that four kids is a good number for us, but I apparently I am still sad that this will be the last. Gosh I am such a pregnant woman. One minute I hate pregnancy and want all my kids to be grown and out of the house, the next I am looking through my kids baby books wanting to cry my eyes out. So anyway the ramblings of a pregnant woman. To my baby sister, I love you and I have been thinking of you and praying for you all week, I really hope this works and that you can know the joys and pains of motherhood too.

10 rules for the last trimester.

Everywhere I look there seems to be another rule for pregnant women, especially when you get big enough to show and everyone, and I mean everyone, feels like they need to tell you something else you need to do to take care of that baby. So I have decided to establish some rules for all the non pregnant people out there, certain things you all need to know about how you should be treating women during those last 12 weeks.

Rule #1- DO NOT TELL A PREGNANT WOMAN HOW BIG SHE IS! I was at Wal-Mart yesterday and the greeter lady ask me when I was due, when I told her June 7th she said "wow, you are really big" then she went on to talk about how she thinks it looks like pregnant women are just walking around with basketballs under their shirts and that it is just so cute. I was not amused.

Rule #2- PREGNANT WOMEN SHOULD NEVER HAVE TO WAIT FOR ANYTHING

Rule #3- IF SOMEONE SHOULD DARE TO BREAK RULE 2 A PREGNANT WOMAN SHOULD NOT HAVE TO STAND WHILE SHE WAITS. I thought of this one while I was at my 6 year olds YMCA basketball game. Now there is always that family at these games where one kids parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles and even the family mailman fell like they all must attend. Now on my son's team this whole group decides to get there early and take every available seat. Since there is no way I am getting up even earlier on a Saturday that means that I either get to sit on the dirty floor which I will never be able to get up from, or I get to stand for the whole game. So you would think there would be some kind person who would give up their seat for the pregnant woman... but no they all give you a hard stare that says "don't even think about it". Children's sports really don't bring out the best in people.

Rule #4- UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD THE WOMAN IN HER THIRD TRIMESTER EVER BE REMINDED THAT IN THE FIRST 5 WEEKS OF PREGNANCY SHE VOWED TO EAT HEALTHY AND ONLY GAIN 30LBS. Even if the woman asked someone to remind her at the end to be healthy. Those words should be completely forgotten and the pregnant woman should be allowed to eat that whole bag of cookies if she wants too.

Rule #5- WHEN THE PREGNANT WOMAN IS ASKED HOW MUCH LONGER SHE HAS NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO MAKE FUN OF HER REPLY. So when you ask how much longer I have and I say 11 weeks, 2 days, and 13 hours. I want no replies about how I am not counting or anything. If you are brave enough to ask any woman how much longer she has you just sit and listen to the answer, cause hey you asked!

Rule #6- THE WOMAN IN HER LAST TRIMESTER IS UNDER NO OBLIGATION TO WEAR CUTE CLOTHES, PUT ON MAKEUP, OR MAKE MORE THAN THE PONYTAIL EFFORT ON HER HAIR. I think this rule applies to those well meaning mothers out there. They have all been known to say "You need to do your hair and put on makeup every day, it will make you feel better" well, for me it doesn't make me feel better cause lets face it, no one is looking at my hair or makeup any way. All anyone ever sees is the big belly, I think the thing may as well have a bulls eye on it for all the attention it gets. So moms we love you and we appreciate your concern, but save it for about 6 more months.

Rule #7- THE PREGNANT WOMAN WILL UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR ANY UNFOUNDED NEGATIVE COMMENTS SHE MAKES ABOUT HER HUSBAND. We know we love those guys but right now we want to kill them for the weirdest, and the most acceptable reasons.

Rule #8- THE PREGNANT WOMAN WILL BE ALLOWED TO SLEEP WHENEVER, WHEREVER AND FOR HOWEVER LONG SHE WANTS. Okay so I know this will never happen, but a woman can dream right?

Rule #9- DURING THE THIRD TRIMESTER THE PREGNANT WOMAN WILL NOT BE EXPECTED TO PICK ANYTHING UP OFF THE FLOOR. I think that one is pretty self explanatory.

Rule #10- DURING THE THIRD TRIMESTER YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO SPEAK TO A PREGNANT WOMAN WITHOUT COMPLIMENTING HER FIRST. I don't know how other women are at this point, but my self esteem is pretty low. I look bad, I hurt in odd places, I find it very difficult to keep my house clean, I forget simple things, and I just can't get anything done with any sort of speed. So be extra, extra nice to us girls during this difficult time (all you pregnant women out there make sure your husbands especially understand this one.)

So there you go. If all of you forward these rules to everyone you know then the word might get out and all of us in that long drawn out third trimester can be treated a little more how WE think we should be treated!

getting better

Well I am finally better, for this month anyway. I was sick last Thurs and Fri, then thought I was better on Sat then woke up Sun morning with aches and a fever. Seeing as how my other two kids also got sick on Monday it was not a fun week. By Tues when I was feeling worse instead of better I decided to call the doc and see if I could take any medication to help me sleep. So of course my doctor was called out of town for a family emergency and the on call doctor decided that he absolutely must see me in the office. Now this is kind of a quandary. When you are sick and worried that it might be getting worse you just know that you need to see the doctor, on the other hand that means getting out of bed, possibly showering, and putting clothes on you haven't been wearing for two days, on top of that add getting your two sick kids to put socks and shoes on over their pajamas if they are even wearing those after days of mom being sick. I think my six year old was just wearing dinosaur undies and a big blanket. So I drag myself and my two kids into a somewhat presentable state and drive to the doctors, arriving at about 2 o'clock. Then I just sit there and watch 5 people get called ahead of me. By now it is 2:40 and I am worried about being able to pick my one healthy child up from school by three. So I drag myself out of my chair and tell the receptionist that I need to leave by three and is there anyway I can get in before that. She walks back to find out for me. When she returned she tells me (in a slightly condescending voice) "the doctors are really busy today and since you don't have an appointment and are seeing the on call doctor you will just have to wait" making it sound like I was the one who wanted to be there and was being impatient for no good reason. Oh I was mad! I am getting to that point of pregnancy where I am so angry I just want to swear all the time. However, I was good, I refrained from any profanities (my parents really did teach me better than that). So I said "I am not trying to be difficult, the doctor was the one who asked me to come in and I HAVE to pick my daughter up from school at three, I can't just not pick her up" at which point the receptionist looked at me in silence deciding whether she could challenge a mother's responsibility to pick her child up from school. I really think she thought it was more important for me to stick to the doctor's schedule than to pick my child up! But, I am guessing that she has dealt with enough pregnant women to know better than to challenge me on that one. So anyway, after that they were great, they got me in and out and gave me a nice prescription for antibiotic "just in case" as the doctor said. There was one silver lining to this whole annoying day. When my husband came home from work with my antibiotics included in the bag was a prescription cough syrup from the nice doctor. Now as I said before I was having a hard time sleeping. My nose was so irritated that it hurt to breathe and my throat was so sore it hurt to breathe through my mouth also. This lovely cough syrup said on the bottom "contains codeine, may cause drowsiness" music to my ears! And for all you worriers out there yes pregnant women can take codeine! So anyway I slept from 10 that night to noon the next day, it was heavenly. I am a big fan of codeine and any doctor that will prescribe it.
So I spent this whole week getting a little bit better every day. One night I made the mistake of telling my husband that I was really starting to feel better. Then an hour later I ran out of energy and started feeling worse again so my stupid stupid husband says to me in an accusing voice "you said you were feeling better" like once you say that it is a binding contract and there is no going back. To which I replied "I was feeling better, now I am feeling worse again." He obviously has not quite gotten the fact that I go from zero to TICKED OFF in about 4.3 seconds. You would think that he would get that after 6 months of pregnancy. So I let him have it I said in a Very SARCASTIC VOICE "you know contrary to what you may think this whole sickness thing is a lot harder on me than it is on you so if you could just pretend to have just a little bit of compasion for me I would really appreciate it" at this point he uses the typical male defense technique of backpeddeling and says "I feel bad for you " to which I said in a very mature 14 year old fashion "whatever" then I left the room to feel sorry for myself and angry at him elsewhere. So it feels good to be feeling better and it is a small comfort to know that there is a bottle containing codeine in the back of my pantry (just in case!).

I just can't think of a clever title right now so deal with it.

Well of course I am sick again, cause you know I was had a stomach bug in Nov, terrible long lasting head cold in Dec, pneumonia took over the month of Jan, and a quick yet violent stomach flu in Feb. So really it is perfect that I am sick because we wouldn't want March to feel left out. So I have aches and pains in all my joints and a terrible cough that really hurts my chest ALOT and yesterday I had a really low fever. So I am not too happy right now. My eight year old got sick on Wed with it, she had a much higher fever so that was sad, oh and did I mention that my husband was out of town for it all. That is just the way life works, it is just one of those things, like if you drop a cupcake it will land frosting side down, or if you wear a white shirt your kids will wipe something gross on it within 5 min and if your husband goes out of town someone will get sick. It was annoying too because I had this nice queen size bed all to myself. Usually when my honey travels I don't sleep very well, but now I am pregnant enough that I was LOVING having the bed all to myself. I slept right in the middle with a bunch of pillows built up all around me. It was like a comfy warm pillow cocoon, or it was until my sick kid got up three times in one night. I was good though, I was nice and compassionate, I got her juice and extra blankets and gave out extra hugs, all those things mom's do for sick kids. So how do I get repaid, I wake up with a painful cough and feel progressively worse throughout the day. So right now I am really tired and I want to take a nap but there is a big problem with that. About six months ago my husband made up a game with our three year old where he lays on the bed and pretends to be asleep then she whacks him in the stomach and he jumps up and yells "I'm awake"! at which point she laughs like crazy and he pretends to go back to sleep. So as you can imagine if I lay down and close my eyes for even a minute she is thrilled that I am going to play the game with her. Those darn husbands that play with their kids, what am I going to do with him. So anyway this bug only bothered my daughter for two days, so hopefully I will be as lucky.

I am SICK of dealing with this crap!

Seriously I am sick of dealing with this crap. I am potty training my three year old and she does perfectly in the #1 department and almost perfect in the #2 department. However, almost perfect is not too fun for mom. It seems every 4 or 5 days we have what some people call "an accident" but I call a toxic waste spill. I wonder what the EPA would do if called them and asked them to come contain the toxic spill in my daughters Dora the Explorer underwear (or undies as she insists on calling them).
I am also getting a little sick of the attitude I am getting out of my pint sized three year old. This was my morning, me- "do you want breakfast", her (in a screeching voice)- "no, I want breakfast", me-"okay go sit in your chair", her (in the same screeching voice)- "no, I don't want to sit in my chair", me- "where do you want to sit", her-"in my chair". By now my husband is laughing his head off in the other room. She finally sits in her chair at which point I ask if she wants to say the prayer, her reply "no, mommy say the prayer". So I say the prayer. When I finish she starts crying and tells me that she wanted to say the prayer. So I tell her to say another prayer. So she proceeds to cry her prayer. By now my husband and I are both laughing. It was really the funniest prayer I have ever heard. So anyway she ate then was a little happier for the rest of the morning. It is all very annoying because I think only one person per house should be allowed to be grumpy and this week I want to be that person. Do you think if I explain it to her she will agree? I am pretty sure she will say "NO, I want to be grumpy" then five minutes later she will say "Mommy, you be grumpy"!

A House Of Idiots

Well it is true, I am actually feeling good, I would almost say great. I am not sick, I am not tired and I am not big enough to be uncomfortable. Sometimes I even forget that I am pregnant until I try to bend over. I have had to adjust my straight forward bend down to legs slightly apart then squat a little and bend a little, it may not be pretty but it works. So anyway you probably think that I would just enjoy this time of well being and relax. But here is the thing after being sick for so long sitting around and doing nothing just doesn't appeal to me. Plus the more time I have with nothing to do but clean the house and read books to my three year old the longer pregnancy is. So I have taken on a project. Of course it is not something simple and easy, no it is tearing up my kitchen floor. Now a lot of you all ready know that we live in a house built in 1950 that we bought in August. We like the house a lot except for the nightmare kitchen. It is pretty bad, no counter space no cabinet space, and yes those upper cabinets are literally taller than me. So anyway I discovered that some design impaired idiot covered up hard wood floors with plastic blue floor tiles sometime in the 1960's, then in the 80's some other idiot covered the blue floor tiles with pink and white linoleum. If this house has been owned by a handful of idiots what does that say about me, hmmmmm. Anyway, I LOVE hard wood floors, they are my favorite home decor thing. So I decided for my project to remove all the idiot inspired linoleum and tiles. This is not an easy job. In fact it is really difficult. So much so to the point that I really am convinced that owning this house really does make you an idiot. This is how the process goes.

1. Cut the linoleum into strips with a knife.

2. Say a prayer that it will just peel off.

3. Say a prayer of gratitude when some of it does.

4. Chip away at the pieces that don't with a putty knife while you trying not to curse.

Pink linoleum gone now move onto the blue floor tiles

5. Place an iron set to high on the tile.

6. After it is hot take a hammer and putty knife and pry with the knife while banging the back of it with the hammer.

7. Repeat steps 5 & 6 again and again and again for 140 sq ft of kitchen floor.

Blue tiles gone, now for the fun part the idiot who put down these blue tiles glued two layers of this black felt like tar paper to the wood floor first.

8. Boil a big pot of water and vinegar.

9. Spread a towel over the black paper.

10. Pour boiling water over the towel.

11. For the next two days every four or five hours scrape more paper off the floor as the water softens and disintegrates the glue. This step also involves a lot of trying not to curse.

12. Scrub the wood floor with crud cutter to remove all extra glue.

So that is what my project is. Last night as I was scrapping off some of the tar paper I had a vision of a middle aged man in the 1960's gluing down the last blue tile and saying to his wife "this floor is NEVER coming up!". So ya I think this house has turned me into a flooring idiot, but at least my floor will be pretty and classic when it is done. I know I know I could have easily just covered the floor with another layer of something else, but honestly there was starting to be a definite difference in floor levels from the kitchen to the other rooms. Pretty soon we would have needed a step ladder to get from one room to the other and I all ready use a step ladder to get into my cupboards. I don't want two step ladders in my house. So anyway there is my project, but really I have always liked projects I feel really good when they are done. When you are a stay at home mom you work hard all day and at the end of the day you often feel tired, have a messy house, and kids complaining about going to bed. There are no quick tangible results. So while I know what I am doing is great and that all the work will produce wonderful productive adults, when I find those stinky balled up socks all over the house I sometimes have a hard time believing it. So I like projects, they give me that feeling of accomplishment that I sometimes need to keep going. So wish me luck, I am off to scrape my floor!

My House of Mystery

I live in a house of mystery. I have lived in my house since August and I have discovered that my house has many things about it that are mystical and mysterious. For instance there is the mysterious opening door !!! At the bottom of the stairs I have a hall closet where the door somehow is always open. I seriously closed it 5 times yesterday! What could be causing this, I think my house is haunted. Or I suppose it could be that the yahtzee and domino games are in that closet and my 6 year old LOVES those games right now.
Then there is the mystery of the rumpled socks. This is a mystery that has follwed me everywhere I go. Whenever I do laundry my husband and kids dirty socks are always crumpled in a dirty, stinky, tight little ball. Now some of you may say "that is no mystery, your husband and kids are to blame" but that just can't be because I have very nicely asked them all multiple times not to do that and I know they love and respect me so much that they wouldn't just ignore my desires.
Then there is the mystery of the crumb covered floor. My dinning room floor is always covered with crumbs. I sweep about 3 times a day but still there are crumbs sticking to my feet whenver I walk through there causing me to go get the broom yet again. Now I suppose it could be that my kids love crackers and they eat like beavers, chop, chop, chop, chop. Or it could just be a mystery.
I also have the toothpaste mystery. Now this only afflicts my kids bathroom. I find though that everyday there are globs of dried on toothpaste all over my kids sink. I suppose I could blame it on the kids, but they swear that they try really hard to get all the toothpaste on the toothbrush.
So I live in a house of mystery. I really am smart enough to realize that all this is caused by messy children, but I find that it is easier to love them if I can blame it all on mysterious supernatural forces. So what mysteries inflict all of your homes?

I have been tagged.

Well I have been tagged by my little sister and she says she will stalk me if I don't do this and she doesn't make idle threats. So I figure all you ever hear about me is that I am pregnant and that I have anger issues here goes...

Ten Years Ago... I was twenty, a newlywed, and a junior in college. I had no thoughts of pregnancy and I was soooooooooo poor, but happy!

Five Places I Have Lived... 1. Buffalo New York, lots of snow and I mean lots of snow, but great friends. 2. Provo Utah, where I went to college and met my honey. 3. Cary Illinois, those fun high school years, ya right. 4. Tulare California, no snow! and swimming at friends houses at least 6 months of the year. 5. Anchorage Alaska, we lived there when I was one and all I remember is lots of darkness, lots of sunlight and eating the moose my dad and uncle killed every flippin day, yuck!

Five Things On My To Do List... 1. Plan ward activity 2. Remove hard to remove kitchen floor tiles 3. Make wedding quilt for baby brother who is all grown up 4. finish curtains so Leslie will stop pestering me 5. Oh, ya push a hopefully smaller than 8 lb baby out of my body.

I Enjoy... The Colbert Report, super funny show, I often laugh so hard I cry. Sewing quilts or clothing. Shopping with my sisters. Going out to diner with my husband. Reading. Running and hiking. Last but not least CHOCOLATE!!!

Three Bad Habits... Eating anything sweet before 9 AM. Asking my husband what's wrong a million times when nothing is wrong at all. Wanting to tell my kids no to something before they have even asked.

Five Things You May Not Know About Me... 1. I always said I would never live in Montana. 2. I really do love my kids and would rather stay home with them than anything. 3. I absolutely hate sappy chic flicks. 4. I can beat my husband at scrabble 9 times out of 10. 5. I love watching America's Next Top Model, it is the dumbest show but somehow I love it.

5 Jobs I Wish I Had... 1. Fabric designer (I can never find what I want). 2. Professional chef. 3. House flipper. 4. american idol contestant (if i could sing) 5. photographer

Numbers are scary!

It is true I am currently afraid of numbers. Now those of you that know me well are probably baffled by this. My husband is an economist, he is one of those weird freaks of nature that loves doing statistics. Every day he comes home with "did you know..." then rattles off a bunch of numbers and figures. Now normally I love this. I think it is very interesting hearing all this info. However, now I am pregnant and there are certain numbers that make me want to go running for the hills. Pregnancy is not a good time for numbers but we are constantly bombarded with them.
The first one, 9! 9 months of pregnancy, and if you are lucky you will fell good for only 3 of them. Here is a number that was scaring me yesterday. I was lugging in my groceries, which is not fun because I have started to have that fun ligament stretching pain in my hips and the bottom of my belly. So anyway as I was hefting the milk I thought I am 22 weeks along, that means I have 18 weeks left. That means I have to bring in groceries 18 more times and every time is going to be harder than the last. If there wasn't snow all over the ground I would have sat down and cried. My poor family, by the end I will only be buying really light things. We will be living on cold cereal, pop corn and cotton candy. Come to think of it they would love that.
The other night my husband and I were talking about how having a baby in June means no family vacation for the summer. So I was saying maybe by August we could just do some fun day trips. He wondered if I meant just the two of us and the baby? I said no I thought we could all go. So he said "ya, I suppose if we are taking one we might as well take the other three". The other THREE! HOLY CRAP, when did I get four kids. The thought of having another baby isn't scary because I have had babies before, but I have never had four kids before. This is kind of overwhelming. My husband and I both admitted that we are afraid. So again numbers, the number 4 is very scary.
Here is another scary number, 6. I was in the bathroom the other day thinking when the baby comes and we move our three year old down stairs that will be three people in each bathroom. I stopped and thought no that is wrong, then I realized that is right. We are going to have 6 people in our family, that is a lot. Now you are probably all thinking I am really stupid right now. Whether about not doing math well or actually having six kids take your pick. I would have to agree my thought processes were probably not working well on either account.
Here is another scary number, 3. I am going to have three daughters! This is kind of scary. My parents had six daughters. I don't know how they did this. They are even mostly sane and my dad still has some hair. I am excited to have daughters, for a while, but then I think of the teenage years. I have tried to explain to my husband how teenage girls are and he gets a disbelieving/scared look on his face. He tells me that teenage boys just need lots of food and to not talk alot. So three girls is a little frightening.
Then there is the scariest number of all... the number you see when you step on the scale! Lately I just avoid the scale. When I go in the bathroom if it is there I just nudge it under the counter with my toe. However, tomorrow I have my monthly appt. there is no avoiding the scale there, plus it is worse because you have a witness who writes the evil number down. Then you sit in the room while your doctor looks at your chart. Now durring these moments of silence I debate what I can say to defend my expanding derrierre. "Would you believe that I am retaining 15 pounds of water" or "I have a disorder called sleep ingestia where I sleep walk into the kitchen and consume mass quantities of cheese cake without even waking up" or should I just be honest and say "I am hungry and I feel crappy so food is my only joy so just leave me alone". Actually my current doctor was great about the weight gain thing when I gained 50 pounds with my last pregnancy so I am not too worried about her, I just don't want to see the number on the scale. I wonder if they would just let me close my eyes and not tell me what the scale says? I think I will try that.
Then there are the numbers of the future. The labor and delivery numbers. For some crazy reason I did my last baby without and epidural. It was awful but I did it. I remember at one point after about 3 hours of pain the doctor said you are doing well, should be about 2 more hours. I wanted to cry. Then at the end when the contractions were 2 minutes apart the nurse telling me after one "you have 1 minute to rest" again I wanted to cry. So labor and delivery are also very scary times for numbers.
So anyway I am afraid of numbers for the time being. Hopefully I will get over this fear in another 4 months (ahhhhhh scary) cause that is how long I have left.

Maternity Clothes

Well a couple weeks ago I did the inevitable... I pulled out the dreaded box of maternity clothes. Let me tell you it was quite an experience. Old maternity clothes are depressing on two counts. First they are just a reminder that you are too big and fat for your old clothes. Plus when you pull them out they look huge and at this point they are huge when you put them on so it is depressing to realize "yes I am going to get this big". For those of us that have done this pregnancy thing before we also remember that these clothes will actually be tight on us at the end because that is just how big we are going to get. I remember with my first pregnancy trying on the first maternity clothes and thinking "this is NEVER going to fit!" and then I remember that it didn't take all that long for them to fit, and then even quicker it seemed they were not quite big enough, ughhh. So that is reason number one that the big box of maternity clothes is depressing. Reason number two I think only happens if you have done this crazy baby thing a few times before. Let's just put it this way, no one wants to be reminded of the clothes they wore eight years ago. Well the other day I was reminded of the clothes I wore eight years ago when I was fat and puffy. I seriously don't remember wearing some of these clothes they are so ugly. I think the ugly clothes fairy snuck them in my box and laughed her head off at me as I pulled them out. There was a maternity shirt with big wide black and white horizontal stripes on it that someone must have given me. Every fashion expert out there says not to wear horizontal stripes, and that isn't even when you are pregnant. I also had a pair of lovely black knit overalls with tapered ankles that I got a lot of compliments on eight years ago, but when I wore them three years ago with my last pregnancy my kids always told me I looked like a penguin. I don't think I could deal with that now so those went in the trash. Then there was the eight year old dress with the HUGE lace collar. That also went in the trash. Then there were all the shirts with the 9 month stain. You all know what I am talking about. When you are nine months pregnant if you ever drop any food your belly is too big to miss, why I kept these shirts I have no idea. I think I was so glad to put them all away I didn't even look at what I was doing. Those clothes probably got in that box in about 10 seconds flat. So ya old maternity clothes are depressing. I do have to give the fashion world credit. Maternity clothes have gotten so much cuter than they were with my first pregnancy. But let me just point out some flaws with their advertising. First none of those women are pregnant!!! They are all wearing those fake bellies that show how the rest of us look when we are maybe 5 months pregnant. None of them have swollen faces or bags under their eyes from lack of sleep. Plus do you notice anything funny about this picture... she is wearing THREE INCH HEELS. Come on, how many of you wore three inch heels at the end of pregnancy. How many of you could even get your swollen feet into heels at the end of pregnancy. If I were in charge of a maternity clothes photo shoot the model would be hugely pregnant, sitting in a recliner, wearing flip flops, she would not have her legs crossed because that is impossible at the end and she would have a water bottle in one hand and an oreo in the other. Oh ya and she would be falling asleep. I think that would be more accurate, oh course no one would buy the clothes. Because really we are all in denial about the end. Which is good because if we weren't we would never make it.

good things

Well today I thought I would post things that are good right now so that I can say that sometimes I am a positive person, all though you probably can't tell from all my previous posts. So anyway here are the things that are making me happy lately. First, I HAVE ENERGY! It feels like it has been forever since I even had the desire to do small things. Now I find myself actually getting things done, it is great. Also, I am not freezing cold, this makes me happy. On Saturday night a cold front came in and the temp dropped to a high of 3 degrees the last two days. Since I have gained a decent amount of weight I find that I don't feel that bone chilling cold I usually feel in the winter, that makes me happy. On Saturday I got a new dishwasher and refrigerator. Now since we moved in 5 months ago I have had a crummy dishwasher that hardly washed the pre-rinsed dishes. I hated it. Now I have a beautiful brand new dishwasher that can conquer any dirt and grime. So far it has blasted the dried apples and syrup of my apple cobbler dish and devoured the dried on lasagna off of my spatula. I just love this, it makes me sooooo happy. I am working my way up to putting in the truly challenging messes. Dried eggs and brownie pans. The last thing that is making me especially happy is that we have finally got my three year old on a good sleep schedule. We started last week with the parent enforced sleep time smack down. There was some definite smacking and kicking going on, our three year old can really inflict some damage when she is angry. So we had a bad about 5 days but now she goes to bed between 7:30 and 8:00 wakes up happy and is in a much better mood during the day. So life is good, I may be feeling ugly and fat, but I am happy. Hope you all are feeling happy too.

Half Way There

Well today is one of those days that I don't know if I love or hate. I am twenty weeks today officially half way there. Hopefully more than half way. I have been lucky with my previous three kids that I had them all early, but with every kid I get closer to my due date, so who knows when this one will arrive. Anyway I love this day because it feels like a milestone. I am halfway there we are making definite progress. On the other hand I all ready feel like I have been pregnant FOREVER so that means that I have FOREVER to go, no fun. The next two months should be pretty good though. I have been feeling pretty good. All the effects of pneumonia seem to be gone, finally! So life is pretty good. I am definitely looking pregnant now. I was in my son's kindergarten class yesterday and one of the kids walked up to me and said "you have a baby in your tummy" then he walked away. It was pretty funny, kindergartners are cute. I also can no longer sleep on my stomach. This makes me very sad. I am definitely mourning stomach sleeping. I am approaching S.W.M.P. time (sleeping with multiple pillows). Now it is a fact that all pregnant women sleep with extra pillows in bed. For between the knees, under the belly, or my personal favorite wedged in my back. It is also a fact that all husbands complain about it. Really, what is with them. I guess I should be more sympathetic. Cause you know it would be SO HARD to sleep with 6 inches less sleeping space. Those poor husbands, YA RIGHT. So I am prepared for the first time my husband complains about the pillows that will soon be joining us in bed. My speech goes like this "You try sleeping only on your side, preferably the left, because you have an extra ten pounds jammed in your stomach, oh ya and that extra weight is constantly jabbing you in the bladder making you get up to go to the bathroom three times a night, and your back hurts from hefting that extra weight around, and it is a herculean effort just to roll over, and oh ya THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT CAUSE YOU DID THIS TO ME!" Then I will take ten minutes to roll over and go to sleep for a half hour until I have to get up to go to the bathroom again. Now for all you reading this who all ready have kids YOU KNOW you have gone through this exact situation. You may say my husband never complained about the pillows. To you I say he is lying. Not that that is a bad thing. I am not normally a fan of lying, but when a woman is pregnant I think some good lying by the husband can make everyone happy. For instance when I ask him if I look fat he says "no, you are just pregnant and it will all go away after the baby is born". Or if I start crying and say "I am so moody" he says "don't be ridiculous, you are totally justified in each and every thing you have daily cried about for the last two weeks". So all you husbands out there this is the one time in our lives that I will justify lying. So I hope my husband enjoys the next 4 and a half months, I know I won't.

The Ultrasound

Well last week we had the ultrasound and..... it's a GIRL! Right after the words came out of the technicians mouth my husband said, and I quote, "great another one". Now this may sound like he is a big fat jerk, but I have to say he was totally justified in what he said after what went on with our 8 year old the night before. Now normally she is a normal kid who gets upset sometimes but is normally pretty much in control emotionally. However about once a year, maybe when the moon is full or she has had too many veggies pushed on her in one week, she will just freak out, and I mean FREAK OUT! She got mad at her dad about something that was soooooo not a big deal and proceeded to spend the next 4 hours screaming and crying in and out of her room. At one point when her temper led her to be really mean to her brother I told her to knock it off or her favorite Christmas toy, the great and wonderful American Girl doll, would be taken from her for a day. Apparently she thought I was bluffing because the tantrum continued, this is at about hour two. So away went the doll and in to bed went the 8 year old, the screaming crying 8 year old. It sounded like an animal was dying in our house it was so extreme. Anyway in the next hour, hour 3 of the tantrum, I was taught some very interesting things by my eight year old. For instance, did you know that I don't love her and that nobody loves her. Also I learned that "it" isn't fair, whatever that means. Also that through all this screaming she was "just trying to be nice", I am guessing that this has something to do with the "it isn't fair" line. This last one was my favorite, did you know that by taking away her favorite toy I was "just wasting a lot of money". Apparently her father the economist has a few things he needs to teach her. So the tantrum and our education of all things logical to an eight year old wore on until she got so mad that she came storming into the living room and THREW HER GLASSES AT ME! That's right your heard me, since she isn't completely stupid she made a hasty retreat, which was good because my husband and I just about shot through the roof at that point. We were sooooooooo mad, but somehow we kept our cool (I think it was because we both knew the other person was there to witness any physical violence so we couldn't act on our very strong desires to BEAT SOME SENSE INTO HER). So we calmly went into her room and quietly explained why she was in bed, what she was doing wrong, and why her toy was taken away. I think it was good that we were calm. I think deep down we knew that if we went in screaming and yelling it was just the thing she wanted so she could continue having a reason to scream and yell at us. So anyway she eventually went to sleep and everyone was pretty happy the next day, that is until we went to the ultrasound and heard those words "it's a girl". So now you probably understand my husbands reaction, but I am sure this girl will be perfect. No tantrums, no mood swings, no cattiness, it will be great, right??? So anyway we are excited to be having a girl, that is everyone but my 6 year old son who said with a very whinny voice "great now everything will be all girly". Poor guy, he and his dad will be fighting a loosing battle for the rest of their lives, but I guess he should get used to it now, it will prepare him for marriage. GIRLS RULE! So anyway hope you all have better nights with your kids than we have had and remember watch for those full moons and too many veggies in one week, you never know what will create a monster!

Dinner table conversations.

I find that with little kids dinner is the best time to get them talking. They aren't distracted by television, toys, friends (or according to my kids tasty food since I apparently can't cook any). So ya dinner is a good time to get them talking, whether or not you want to hear what they say remains in question. So anyway my kids are of course interested in my being pregnant and all sorts of things about the baby so here are some of our dinner conversations. One night my eight year old daughter asked me "mom where exactly is the baby inside you" so I stood up and showed her the bottom half of my stomach where the baby is, at this point my six year old son says "isn't it up there in that big part" pointing to the big part of my belly that was pooching out over the top of my fp's (fat pants). "no I reply that is not the baby it is just all the stuff the baby pushes up" "oh" my son said "then that, pointing to my pooch, is just the fat part". At this point my husband jumps in and tells my son "you never never tell a woman that any part of her is fat." At which point my son just shrugs his shoulders and dinner moves on. The next night at dinner before we sit down my daughter points to the bottom half of my belly and says "that is where the baby is right?" to which I reply "yes" then my son ends my happy pregnant feeling when he points to my pooch and says "and that is the fat part". So now my stomach is composed of a baby part and a fat part, what fun!
A few nights ago we were sitting at dinner talking about something non baby related when my 6 year old pipes up and says "mom, if the baby is in your stomach how come it doesn't get digested?" I thought this was hilarious, can you tell my kid has spent hours watching the magic school house dvd on the digestive system. So we explained how the baby has a special kind of sack that it lives in until it is born. At this point my daughter was horrified to learn that the baby was living in water and not breathing air, when we assured her that this was okay she became very concerned about how the baby ate. So we explained the whole umbilical cord thing. I can promise you my kids will never look at their belly buttons the same again. It makes you think that the whole baby growing process is kind of bizarre. It makes you wonder what other things that we think of as totally normal would our kids think are weird? Like how we are always telling our daughter how to behave what not to say to other people, but then we get horrified at her when she tells other kids at school these same things. Or how they need to eat healthy but then sometimes they catch me or my husband sneaking a cookie before breakfast (you know you have all done it!). So anyway kids are confusing to us, we are confusing to them and I think it will be that way until the end of time, but hey at least we entertain each other.

An... effective way to lose weight?

Well I just had a doctor appt yesterday and the big weigh in had me with a weight gain of only 13 pounds. Now some of you may be saying, wait a minute I thought you had gained 15 pounds, where did those two pounds go? Especially over the Christmas holidays. I wish I could say it was hard work and discipline. That I had waltzed past the peppermint bark, turned my back on the potatoes and completely ignored all the yummy desserts, but no it had nothing to do with self control cause lets face it, if it is in the house I will eat it. No the secret to my success is simple, if you want to lose weight just get pneumonia. It is really quite simple, get sicker than you have ever been in your life and the pounds will just melt away. So ya I spent Christmas break in bed wanting to die. Luckily I felt good on Christmas eve and Christmas morning so that was really quite fun, but around noon on Christmas day I started to drag, and by that night was when the wanting to die part started happening. Then I spent the next three days going from wanting to die to feeling really really crappy, to feeling really crappy and so on. Now I am just left with a cough a stuffy head and wanting to sleep all the time, but hey I lost two pounds right?!? Actually I am not to excited about that, I know it is not good to lose weight at this point of pregnancy and feeling as bad as I did last week is definitely not worth the trade off of weight lost, but oh well what are you going to do. So any way here is a shout out to all you pregnant women out there. Get you flu shot! Also when the pregnancy books say the pregnancy makes your immune system weaker you might want to believe that line, I certainly do now. Well I think it is time to wrap this up, it is time for my 9 A.M. nap.