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.