How to compliment someone

So let's say your about to see a pregnant woman that you haven't seen in a while. You want to give her a compliment that will really make her day but what do you say? Listen up because I'm going to tell you exactly what to say to make her feel warm and fuzzy all over! Within two minutes of greeting her, look her up and down and say "Wow! This pregnancy has really made you balloon out all over!"

I promise you that the pregnant lady will remember your kind and thoughtful words for years to come. In fact, she probably won't be able to look at you again without remembering how your keen observation made her feel about herself.

For maximum effect be sure to follow up this compliment by later saying that one of the pregnant lady's kids is smarter than the other and then follow that up by saying "You don't have anything to worry about with this one." while the lady's autistic child is less than 2 feet away.

She'll be beaming for days.

The perfect solution

It's super early here and I'm wide awake. That might have something to do with the fact that I went to bed at 8 last night.

Now I'm wide awake and I don't know what to do with myself. My MIL is coming over today and I really need to get the house cleaned up.

If I clean though I'll wake up everyone else and I want to let them sleep.

So I'll just sit here and quietly play Zoo Tycoon.

Yes, that will be best for everyone.

Do you ever feel....

Do you ever feel like all you do all day long is wipe butts and noses?

Yeah. It's been one of those days.

Joseph has a cold accompanied by the runniest nose I've ever seen and Elle just won't stop pooping.

All of the sudden feel just huge. It's harder to do everything than it was before because I'm so big. And I'm only 31 weeks along! If I'm having this hard of a time bending over to tie my shoes now how will I do it when I'm 39 or 40 weeks?

Pregnancy hormones are making me sad and droopy. I cried this morning because I couldn't get the ring tone I wanted onto my new cell phone. The good news is that I knew it was a stupid reason to cry. That means I'm not going crazy (yet) I'm just pregnant.

Pregnant and facing a 14 foot tall pile of presents to put away.

Ho ho holy crap!

Elle would not nap today. I put her down in her crib when she was very, very nearly asleep. Just like clockwork I heard her chatting and throwing her babies out of her crib 5 minutes later. I had promised Joseph that I would play a computer game with him while Elle was napping though so I figured she could just have some "quiet time" in her crib while Joseph and I played together.

Half an hour later Elle is still chirping happily away. I decide to go up and get her and oh, what a wonderous sight was there for me to behold. Elle was minus her pants and her diaper. She waved to me cheerfuly and oh my god, what was that all over her hands? And what was that smell? And why was there a SMUSHED POOPY LAYING ON THE FLOOR?!?!?!

Children, the gift that keeps on giving.

It's the most wonderful time of the ...... ah, forget it

Bah humbug.

Has anyone seen some extra Christmas spirit laying around? I seem to have lost mine.

I don't know exactly when it happened. Was it when the afternoon of mother/son cookie baking that I planned out got derailed because Joseph decided he would rather spend the whole day reading a video game strategy guide than interacting with people?

Was it last night when I hobbled to bed with an aching back after Jesse and I finished all of our Christmas wrapping that we stupidly put off until the very last second?

Was it this morning when I was woken up by Joseph screaming and sobbing into my face that "eve means morning and that means I get to open presents now and not later!" and "Why do we even open presents at night when we won't have time to play with them?"

Was it later in the morning when I had to break up not one, not two, but three screaming fights between the kids over an empty cardboard tube?

Or is it that I've spent the entire morning snatching half-opened presents out of Elle's hands and then having her cry and pout and yell "No presents later! Presents now!" at me?

I know it will get better. I know it will get better. I love Christmas. My family loves Christmas. I love my family. My family loves presents. This will be a good day.

I just have to remember to focus on the little things that bring me joy. Like the fact that when I went to the mall yesterday I somehow managed to snag the very best parking spot in the entire place without having to wait for hours or fight it out with anyone. Seriously, it was beautiful. I'm going to be telling my grandchildren about that parking spot someday. Ahhhh, I can feel the Christmas spirit returning even as I type this......

Too tired to type

Oh man, I forgot how much the third trimester kicks your butt. I am beat! You know how sometimes at the end of a really long day you're sitting on the couch and you want to get up and go to bed but you just can't because it takes too much energy? Yeah, I feel like that all the time.

Elle's been spending a lot of her time running around the living room and shreiking like a banshee doing animal impressions. She finds it very amusing and it is kind of cute but it does get old after 4 or 5 or 12 hours. I would quiet her down by turning on the TV but most of the time I'm too tired to get up and find the remote.

I don't mean to complain though. Most of the time I feel really good. Most of the time.

Yesterday I had a massive backache so I took one of the pain killers that I had leftover from when I had that migraine. It had a strange effect on me. It didn't make me loopy or tired. It made me ..... domestic. I actually made Christmas cookies with the kids. For a couple of hours. On purpose. No one who knows me is going to believe that. Even Jesse was shocked. He came home and saw what we had done and said "You did all this? With the kids? Really?" Yeah, I was suprised too.

Now I have to go and eat some leftover pizza. The baby needs pineapple and ham.

The best SNL commercial parody ever

Fear of a white ball

Elle has developed a massive and crippling fear of my birthing ball. At first she liked it but then it rolled towards her once and that totally freaked her out. Then she started to panic if she saw it roll at all. Now she screams in terror if she even sees it just sitting still. If she finds herself anywhere near it she screams and runs away. Then she sobs "I scared of a ball!"

Would it be cruel of me to leave the ball at the foot of the stairs to keep her from climbing up them when I don't want her to? (I'm really tired of chasing her off the stairs all day long.)

Now the fear is extending to other balls in the house too. Yesterday she was trembling and crying when Joseph was playing with a little rubber SuperBall. What's up with that?

What happened to Elle in a past life that has got her so scared of balls?

One more step in the process

I've scheduled my time to go to the hospital and meet with a "care manager" to discuss my birth plan. It shouldn't be too complicated, I know pretty well what I do and do not want. What I think might throw a wrench in the whole thing is that J is going to be there.

I can picture it now. I'll be there laying out exactly what I want ("No pitocin, no episiotomy, no monitoring device that keeps me strapped to the bed, no automatic IV") and J will be in the corner quietly freaking out. Once I finish talking he'll pull out some notes he made after doing research on birth online (at sites like totallyuntruefacts.com and worrywartparents.org) and start stressing out about some off the wall statistic he found that said 7% of the 12% of women who don't get at least 67% of the recommended blah blah blah blah and shouldn't I reconsider?

The good news is that I feel pretty comfortable putting my foot down and saying that while this may be his baby this is my birth and I am the one that has to be comfortable with how it goes down. I won't be pressured into doing something that I'm not totally comfortable with.

The big change between this birth and when I had Elle is that I'm going to try to go without an epidural. I know that might be crazy and I might change my mind halfway into it but I'm going to try. With Elle I was so scared of the pain that I would have gotten an epidural at 24 weeks pregnant if I could have. I don't regret getting the epidural but I do wonder how I would have done without one.

The other big change is that I'm going to refuse any artificial methods to move my labor along. With Elle I had pitocin (I really wasn't even asked, it was just given to me and I was informed after the fact) and I had my water broken. None of that this time if I can avoid it at all. I feel like I'm a lot more knowledgeable about the natural process of labor this time around and I think that it might be better to let my body do what it needs to on it's own than to force it.

So I can see how my go-with-the-flow and trust-the-process way of approaching this birth might stress out Mr MedicalInterventionForNorReason. Remember, this is the guy who wanted me to get an amnio just for the pure joy of it. Maybe I'll lessen the shock of it all by letting him in on my plans little by little now. That way when the meeting comes on January 12th I won't totally blow him out of the water.

Who am I kidding? He's gonna freak no matter what.

Balls will save the day

I just polished off a Mint Condition from Caribou Coffee and now I'm happily bouncing on my brand new birthing ball.

I'm feeling much better than I was this afternoon. I still don't think I want to do this for 10 more weeks but at least I'm feeling refreshed enough to tackle tomorrow.

Behold the power of balls.

30 weeks is long enough

Well, that's it. I'm done. I'm sick of being pregnant. I quit.

Seriously.

For the past week I've been really uncomfortable. My feet are swollen and my back is achy. I feel like I have a tight band strapped right under breasts that makes it hard to take a deep breath. I'm consitpated. I burp non-stop. I can't find a good position to sleep in at night. My eyelashes are all falling out.

Oh my god. Can I really have 10 weeks of this left? What in the hell was I thinking when I signed up for this?

Back when I didn't love Elle

When I was pregnant with Elle I would hear women say things like "I fell in love as soon as I saw my son/daughter for the first time" or "The second they put her/him in my arms I felt an overwhelming sense of love". I looked forward to that moment. But see, the thing is, it never happened to me.

When Elle was born she had to go right to the NICU because she was having a little trouble breathing. I only got to hold her for a very brief minute. In that time I didn't feel love. I felt ...... not a whole lot. I was tired, I was in pain, I was confused and I was hungry. Once she was whisked off to the NICU I really just wanted to get something to eat.

The next day when Elle was back in my room with me I wanted to get up and shower. It hurt to move so I slowly, slowly rolled her little bassinet over to the bathroom. I had trouble getting her bassinet over the bathroom door jam and for some reason I couldn't handle that. I sat on the edge of the tub and I cried and cried. At that moment I resented Elle for being there. All I wanted was a stupid shower and I couldn't even get one because this baby and her stupid bassinet were keeping me from it. Thank goodness Jesse showed up just then and he watched her while I showered. I wonder how long I would have sat there and cried if he hadn't shown up.

That night I had Elle sleep in the nursery. The nurses were suprised. "Babies don't usually sleep in the nursery!" they all said. I didn't care. I didn't want her in the room with me. I wanted to sleep. I wanted a break because every time I looked at her I felt guilty for not loving her the way a mother was supposed to love their baby. I felt like shit.

Things didn't get a whole lot better once we got home. At the time I was scared that maybe I had PPD but looking back I don't think I did. I think I was tired and stressed and feeling guilty for not loving my child the way I thought I was supposed to. When she would cry during the night I would beg Jesse "Please, please, please don't make me get up with her again. I just can't do it." He would always say "Yes you can." and he was right, I could. But I did it out of a sense of obligation, not out of love.

That's not to say that I didn't feel anything for Elle. I felt protective of her. Sometimes I liked her. But I didn't love her.

I don't know when that changed. There was never a single moment where I fell in love. I think it happened in little steps for me. Nursing was so hard for both of us at first and then one day we just "got it" and that made things a little better. One night she slept for 3 hours in a stretch and that made things a little better. One day she smiled at me and that made things a little better. One day I was away from her for several hours and when I came back she clung to me and that made things a little better.

Slowly but surely I feel in love with my daughter. I stopped doing things for her because I felt like I had to and started doing them because I loved her, because I wanted to.

Looking back I don't feel bad about not loving Elle at first. What I feel bad about is that I didn't know that it's pretty common to not fall instantly in love with your child. I wish I had known that I was not alone. I wish I had known that someday the love would come, that someday this child would become half the reason my heart beats (Joseph being the other half of course). I wish I had know that someday we would have this.....

The unexpected joys of motherhood

Elle: Mama, Mama, Mama, Mamamamamamamamamamama, MAMA!
Me: (To the person I'm on the phone with) Hold on one second please. (To Elle) What is it honey?
Elle: I tooted.
Me: You tooted?
Elle: Yeah, out my butt.

How did he get a stick in there anyway?

Sometimes this baby kicks me so hard that I feel like he's going to pop out of the top of my belly like that little creature in Alien. Ok, I know that's not a very original or interesting visual but that's what it feels like. I don't know if he's using his knee or his elbow or perhaps a sharp stick but it's really uncomfortable.

It's not like I can do anything about it either. Sometimes I rub my belly or tap on it and say "Hey, knock it off in there you little booger!" but it does no good. He just kicks harder. I think that's a surrobaby's way of saying "You can't tell me what to do! You're not my mom!"

So I grin and bear it. Or rather, I hunch over, grimace, say "Ohhhhhhhhowwwwww!" and bear it.

The best granola bar I have ever eaten

I'm sitting in front of the computer stuffing my face right now. Because I can. Because my 3 hours glucose test came back totally, 100% normal. My numbers weren't even in the high end of the normal range, they were smack dab in the middle. I'm glad I asked about that because when I called J to tell him the results he asked me about that specificaly. "Normal" is not good enough for J. He feels better when everything is exactly average.

Before I left the house to go to the test I threw a granola bar in my purse just in case I wanted something to eat when the test was done. I'm glad I did too. 12 hours of fasting turned out to be a lot harder on me than I thought it was going to be. When my testing was done and I had gotten the results I rushed out of the lab area, grabbed the first spot I could find to sit down and inhaled that granola bar. It had to have been the best tasting granola bar that has ever been or shall ever be. I had to force myself not to lick the wrapper. It's cruel to make a pregnant woman go that long without eating.

So anyway, all is good. Now I have to go and eat some more. Because I can.

Worried

You guys, I have a confession.

I am so scared about this 3 hour glucose test tomorrow.

I have to have four tests done and I have to "pass" at least three of them to be considered gestational diabetes free.

I'm worried that I'm going to "fail" and J will totally freak out and I'll have to take insulin and the baby will end up weighing 14 pounds and my agency will never work with me again.

Sigh.

Carbs are my enemy

Aurgh! I failed the flipping 1 hour glucose test. I was thisclose to passing it but I'm like 2 points over the "normal" range. That means I have to go in for the stupid 3 hour test on Thursay morning. Son of a bitch.

I asked the nurse if my diet from that day could have affected the results and she said it certainly could have. She asked what I had eaten that day and I was ashamed to tell her. Rice and cornbread. And that's it. She laughed and said yes, that could have done it.

Damn my love for carbs!

The good news is that I'm not having any gestational diabetes symptoms. I feel really good so I'm hopeful that this is just a fluke thing and that if I just cut back on the empty carbs a bit I'll be ok.

Now I have to call J. This will be fun.

Scattered thoughts

If you're a parent: Do you ever look at your kids, like when you're playing or reading or snuggling and think "I have the best kids! No one else can love their kids as much as I love mine because mine are the best!"? And then do you sometimes catch yourself thinking that and then realize it's probably a little bit obnoxious but then you know that you can't help it because it's true and your kids really are the best? Because that happens to me a lot.

In other news, I am so scared to leave the house today. I have to go get Joseph from school in half an hour and I'm worried about driving. It's been snowing pretty good all day and the roads are just a mess. I hate driving in snow! Why do I love in the great frozen north? I think it's because I never have the strenght to leave. I spend all winter long huddled up in a ball trying to stay warm and then I spend all summer long feeling weak from blood loss at the hands of swarms of mosquitos. It's hard to plan an escape when you have to work so hard at basic survival.

In yet other news, I just have to say this: I am not the best speller in the world. My grammer is not perfect. Having said that, if I read something that someone wrote and they mix up "you're" and "your" I knock my estiamte of their IQ down by 25 points even if I know nothing else about them. If I see someone use "LOL" I knock it down by 30.

Elle has started this thing now where if we say no to her she looks distressed and says "How come?" It's so cute that I want to say no to her all the time just to hear it. That's probably a little cruel.

That's all.

28 week checkup

I had my 28 week checkup today. All is well. I'm measuring at 30 weeks so either a) I'll go early or b) this baby will be massive. I fear b. Elle always measured a week behind and she was 8 pounds 8 ounces. Eek.

Blood pressure, weight, baby's heartbeat and my glucose/protien urine test all were great. I had to do the one hour glucose test too and although I don't know the results yet I'm sure they'll be just fine.

J was at the appointment and was his usual nervous self. He had 1 million questions about everything. He even stood and hovered over me as I was having my blood drawn. I guess to make sure that they didn't slip and puncutre my uterous as they were drawing blood from my arm.

I'm really starting to feel really pregnant. The baby likes to spend a lot of time firmly lodged under the right side of my ribcage. I'm starting to get heartburn when I lay down at night. My hands and ankles are getting swollen. All the fun stuff. I still feel pretty good though most of the time.

Thanks for everyone's get well wishes. My headache finally went away on Sunday afternoon. I can't beleive that I used to deal with that kind of pain all the time. I'm so thankful that I no longer have the kind of headaches I used to.

Catching up on blg reading, that's #1 on my to-do list tomorrow! Yes, I'm willing to skip laundry and dishes and floor scrubbing to find out how all my favorite people are. I missed you all!

Socky balls

The other night Joseph had put some rubber bouncy balls into a sock and was bouncing it around the room. As he did it he narrated it like a sportscaster. His monologue included him saying "That's right folks, I've really got my balls in a sock tonight!" and then later "I can't even believe how socky my balls are!"

He didn't understand why I kept giggling at him. Oh the innocence of youth.