Prenatal Appointment Update! And Musings on Toddlers.

With all the preceeding week's goings-on, particularly cooking and baking all day Friday and galavanting all Saturday, my ankles vanished completely. Ah my first real cankle-attack, how thrilling... :-/ Not. My dear husband spoiled me though and had me laying down resting or napping all day Sunday! I have to say that was such a vacation for my poor sore tired body, it was just amazing! Isn't he sweet to have babied me all day like that? I was worried about going to my prenatal appointment (rescheduled from the week before if you'll recall) with my feet looking like they were wearing their own inner tubes ready for a float down the river. But thanks to hubby spoiling me rotten, they were almost normal looking by my appointment. Sure I was still only seeing vague bumps where my ankle bones once dominated, and the tops of my feet looked kind of fake what with how smooth and veignless they were due to light swelling, but my toes actually looked like toes rather than a row of vienna sausages and the "inner tube" effect around my ankles was gone.

My appointment was Monday the 2nd and going anywhere in this heat just sucks the life out of me so that's all I did. :p It's nearly an hour away in good traffic so I like to go somewhere else when I go in to the city so I can feel like I got something accomplished, but I just couldn't summon the energy after my appointment to do anything so I just hit the road for home. Upon getting back into my home town I was getting backseat requests to go to Dollar Tree which I'd just been to (for hubby's birthday balloons the previous Wednesday), so I opted for another local store. I thought I'm tired and sore but I'll run in for a minute and they'll feel like we did something fun and then they will nap and I will nap and life will be good. Well we were in the store about 5 minutes when my Buggie got his arm stuck in the shopping cart! This poor boy just cannot catch a break lately, can he? :( The carts are tiny, nearly minature ones, and he had put his arm in the slot between the cart where he was sitting and the push handle of the cart which I was holding, and then couldn't bring it back up again because his elbow joint was bigger than the slot. He must have had it turned in some strange way to get it to go in there in the first place. I had lotion in my purse, because I'm a mom, and I know that one must have a tool for everything in either the purse, the diaper bag, or the car glove compartment! Lol! Meanwhile the lone cashier heard me tell Chicklet to please step aside so I could park the cart and get her brother unstuck, and Buggie pitifully moaning, "I skuuuck! I skuuuck!" The cashier asked me what was wrong and I said, "His arm's stuck but I'm sure I have some lotion in here somewhere..." as I'm digging around in my purse. She didn't wait to see and ran off down one aisle in a panic, hollering for the manager that a baby was stuck in a cart, and the manager came running and then both of them were hovering and clucking and panicking and the rest of the employees were peeking around trying to see what the commotion was about. I was like, "Okay everyone, it's okay, calm down now, I have lotion!" The manager kept saying over and over how many years she's worked there and this has never happened! Never happened! Never happened! How oh how to get him out! She kept saying she didn't know how to get him out. Even after I said I had lotion. Yeah she was really freaked. Then she was jerking on his arm trying to free him and the jerking hurt him and he started crying and then I was biting my lip to keep from snapping at her to BACK AWAY FROM MY KID NOW! I however have had 2 kids who have had a talent for getting their appendages stuck in things, especially between the rails of the crib. *sigh* I do not know how they do it but they can get a finger or leg or arm stuck where it should not have fit IN in the first place. So I'm very well aquainted with the virtues of lotion, and after holding up the bottle by way of an excuse-me since I didn't trust my tongue at the moment, and stepping between my son and the panicking manager and then slathering some on Buggie's arm, it slipped right out with no trouble as I knew it would. The crowd of panicked onlookers waiting to see if I was going to sue over this or not was frazzling my already overbaked for the day brain cells so I assured them that we're all just fine, he's fine, why yes he does have a red mark but trust me he's fine (thinking to self that he wouldn't HAVE a red mark if *someone* hadn't tried to YANK his poor little baby arm free!), and then we escaped the infamy to the car and went home for a blessed nap.

But allow me to backtrack to the actual prenatal appointment! ;) I FINALLY got to meet the head midwife at my new birthing center. I know, right? somehow I've been going there for the last 6 or so months and managed to never have an appointment with the head midwife! I had never even seen her. So when I walked in and a completely unfamiliar woman greeted me, I had a good idea who I was meeting and I was pretty nervous. I had made up my mind to tell whoever I had my appointment with that considering I had never even seen the head midwife and I have a real problem with strangers being at the birth due to my own personality, personal history, anxiety, and just being a shy person all around, I was wondering about the likelihood that the head midwife would be attending this baby's birth. Wondering as in, 'since I don't know her at all, have never seen her, and don't think I have enough prenatal appointments left in my cue to get used to a total stranger to the point of comfort it takes to not mind them seeing me stark nekkid and giving birth, I certainly hope she will not be the one on call, please, oh please, tell me she will not be the one on call so I can quell this panic attack about having to give birth with a stranger!' So of course I go in ready to plead shy and there it's her doing my appointment. And wouldn't you know it but God knows exactly what He's doing- I totally liked her. Seriously. Strangely enough after my one leisurely and comfortable appointment with her I really like her and am totally okay with it if she's the one delivering babygirl! I had to laugh at my human foolishness and thank God for knowing what He was doing even as I had my human worries over something He'd already taken care of. I should have just given it to Him but you know I forget to do that sometimes... more than I'd care to admit. Life would be so much less stressful if that were not one of the many things I'm prone to forgetting.
We discussed PPD and GBS and how to get babygirl off the nerve she gets on sometimes when I can't even walk for the pain. I asked about the painful grinding and popping in my pelvis with every move I make and she thought I could either see a physical therapist or wait it out since it would likely resolve itself postpartum. I think I'll wait it out. I'd rather not throw money at a therapist for something that I had a gut feeling would resolve after the birth even before the midwife expressed that same sentiment. She asked me about my previous breastfeeding experiences. I told her about the difficulties with my kids (well really mostly just Chicklet's tongue-tie and the sub-problems resulting) but that we'd made it to 13 months for both of them before they self-weaned. I told her I was sad not to be able to continue a little longer with them but she told me how great it was to have nursed them for over a year and that it was wonderful that I was able to stick with it with Chicklet with having so very many problems. She was very encouraging. She didn't belittle any of my concerns, or my decisions. And she didn't seem to mind my affectionate kids either. *smile* My tots are very lovey and think that everyone wants a hugging kissing toddler in their lap. Of course everyone wants toys shared with them, right? ;) And everyone wants a little person standing beside their chair petting their arm of course. I try to remind them not to overdo it with strangers but they are so used to being that way it's against their nature not to be. It's a little more difficult for a toddler to comprehend that some things that may be encouraged at home may not be encouraged in the company of strangers. So because at home they are hugged and kissed and loved on and when they are affectionate it's met with enthusiasm all around, they of course would assume that the whole world works that way and everyone must love to be loved on. And I confess I don't try too hard to reign them in... love isn't something that the world gives freely and oftentimes after they get over the initial surprise, people absolutely melt and nearly come to tears after being loved on by my kids. The world could use a little more of the pure love of toddlers- maybe then more people would be able to understand the pure love of God! And I know that all too soon my little lovey babies will grow into more reserved children all on their own. It's just how things seem to work. I hope they will always feel free to be affectionate at home, even when their natural tendency to hold back with strangers starts to kick in. It sure brightens my day when one of my littles climbs into my lap and lays their head on my heart and just soaks in being held. Or stops playing to run up to me and kiss me on the arm and then runs off to resume playing. Or comes up to me, arms outstretched, and asks, "Hugs?" How could I not just melt! :)

Life updates July 24-31

MORE UPDATES!

Sunday the 25th Bug was fine all day until mid afternoon and suddenly he came running up to me whimpering and upchucked curdled milk at my feet. Hubby put him in the tub while I cleaned up. Bug was acting pretty chipper considering he felt like a hot oven. He got cranky at bedtime. I kept alternating motrin and tylenol all night long. He was just burning up. Other than the fever that began with spitting up his milk, he acted fine over the next few days. I was SUPPOSED to have a prenatal appointment, since I was on every other week now, on Monday, but not knowing what the deal was with my son and his strange fevers I thought it best to reschedule. The fever was lower Monday afternoon but still there. He was just as chipper and sweet as he always is. No more puking. He ate well once the fever dropped from scalding down to just hot. I had lost one of our ear thermometers (or rather a toddler got ahold of it and it's now MIA) and the other one's battery is dead and I misplaced the replacement battery somewhere so I was just going by feel. When you touch someone and their skin feels like when you are ironing a shirt and touch the fabric just as you lift the iron and the fabric is so hot it feels like it's burning your hand... yeah that's a good sign the person has a fever. Poor little fellow. But the tylenol / motrin kept it tolerable through Sunday night and then Monday it stayed moderate on it's own until bedtime, when I had to start up the meds again.

Meanwhile hubby was out of town for a few days for work in replacement of the previous time when he didn't have to go after all at the last minute. Our son seems to pick Daddy going out of town to have his fever spells or something! What this meant was that one super tired preggo mama was once again living off a couple too many sodas a day to be able to take care of the kids. Not good for my weight gain or my contractions or any other health aspect at all of course, but necessary for survival.

Tuesday my dishwasher decided to spew water all over my kitchen floor. Thankfully the kids and I were standing right there and as I'm at the stove I hear two little voices exclaiming, "Uh-oh!" and "Oooh no!" clueing me in immediately to the problem before it became a two-towel operation to clean up. I hadn't done dishes for a couple days so I really needed them done, of course. Isn't that the way it goes? I was too tired to play dishwasher repairwoman that night and hubby was coming home late the same night so I wound up handwashing dishes until he could look at it. Hand washing dishes stinks no matter who you are but I happen to have an extra reason that it stinks and that is that I have eczema and dish soap sets off a pretty bad reaction. I get blisters all over my hands, wrists, between my fingers... and the blisters swell up full of fluid and itch like mad, then burst and bleed and scab. Quite a bad reaction to dish soap. Therefore as much as hand washing dishes is the pits anyway, it is even moreso when one is literally allergic to it. When hubby finally had the chance to take a look at the dishwasher for me it was of course suddenly magically fine. *sigh* go figure. It's been fine ever since too. Who knows what it's issue was that day. I sure don't. I'm just thankful that it didn't require an expensive part or repairman to fix and hope it doesn't decide to get dishwasher PMS on me again anytime soon!

Wednesday the 28th I was awakened to contractions at 5am and they hurt too bad to fall back to sleep. They went on that way pretty much until about 2:00 in the afternoon. Chicklet got her hair caught on the doorplate or whatever you call that metal piece that is around the hole where the doorknob latch goes into in the door frame so the door stays closed. She wanted me to braid her hair so it wouldn't get caught on anything else and it's really hard to be still and french braid a wiggley distracted toddler's hair while in pain from contractions. I obviously didn't do a good enough job of it either because the middle part was undone and flying around loose again within an hour. *sigh* This was so not my week so far. I decided things were going to be better because my husband was home from his business trip! Hooray! So I got the kids and myself ready to go and went to the farmer's market and Dollar Tree and we got Daddy some birthday balloons and hats for his birthday Friday. Bug's fever that seemed to show up every evening around bedtime didn't show up this time. He was still up a few times of course, giving me plenty of opportunities to check on him. The fever did not come back. I had tried to look in his mouth one morning this week but he wouldn't let me, telling me my finger was "icky" so I instead tickled him and then tried to look in while he was laughing. I think there's a half-in molar back there from what I could see so that could explain the random fevers and throwing up, especially since he didn't have any other symptoms and nobody else in the house had so much as a sniffle. So we decided to chalk it up to teething.

Thursday I worked on getting those dishes all caught up. I had only been handwashing barely enough to use- I'm sure you can imagine why. So my sink and counter were full of smelly dishes and I went to work getting them all caught up again after we established that the dishwasher was not actually broken, just having a momentary fit or something...? I had lots to do the following day- my husband's birthday! :) Oh and this is the day I discovered my first new stretch mark for this pregnancy. I didn't think there was room for a new one on there- my belly looks about like a giant raisin or something for all the marks. But alas there it was, a brand new red one. Or rather an old one that was lengthening again. So I got out the lotions and oils and decided I need to remember to grease my belly daily- much to the kids' delight. They think rubbing in the lotion is just too much fun and were stoked when I resolved to make it a daily habit. And it is even more fun when the belly pushes back at them. Very super cute! I don't know if they really "get" that the pushing back was a real live baby, their sister, growing inside me. I think that Chicklet understands that there is a baby in there (she sure tells everyone we meet about it so proudly!) but I don't know if she connects the movements with the baby or if she thinks we're pretending we feel the baby. Either way the tots adore massaging lotion on my raisin-belly and babygirl loves it when they do too. She wakes up and pushes her feet against their hands like, "okay now massage my other foot..." :) It's cute overload for me!

Friday my hubby had taken off work. I got up and made everyone bacon and eggs for breakfast. Then I made yogurt. Then I made my hubby's favorite meal and Chicklet helped me make the meal and bake the cake and make the pudding for it. We had supper and our little family-only birthday party with balloons and hats and everyone had a wonderful time! :) After the kids went to bed hubby and I made cookie dough together to freeze which was really fun!

Saturday morning I went to the Farmers' Market with a friend and then we went for a long drive and talked and it was really nice. Bug went home to take a nap with Daddy, and Chicklet stayed with us because my friend's son is her age and she loves playing with him. For some reason they got in an argument over something in the back seat though and were not as friendly as usual. Bummer...
When we parted ways and I got ready for a date with my husband! :D We went to dinner and a movie and a wonderful friend watched the kids for us and gave us a gift card for the dinner. What a wonderful fun time we had! Probably the last chance for a while considering the baby on the way. I wouldn't want to leave a nurseling for as long as we were gone for our date for sure. That precious nursing bond is so sweet and special! I can't wait! I'm not going to want to put her down for a few months at least I'm sure. ;)