Life Updates August 3-10

Tuesday the 3rd of August began with a certain little man going poo in the potty a little bit for the first time ever. He was almost as proud of himself as I was of him! :) His sister was ever so encouraging, talking to him in a high-pitched sugar-sweet voice. She was was thrilled when he went and promptly asked me if that meant we all get an m&m. Hmmm... Ulterior motives? Hehe... ;)

I had contractions ALL DAY LONG and painful ones at that so by the time evening rolled around I was about ready to claw my way out of my own skin to escape them. Why can't I have "normal" Braxton Hicks? Rumor has it they are not supposed to hurt, but mine always do. Rumor also has it they're supposed to feel different than true labor contractions, but mine feel exactly the same; nice and painful like getting chewed in half by a shark. Rumor also has it that they are supposed to not last longer than an hour at a time or else it means it's real labor- I can only laugh at that one. If that were true I've been in real labor for a few months already... should I call up the Guinness' Book Of World Records and see if a 4 month labor makes the record? Lol!

Also this day, between wishing one could escape their own body for a vacation, I taste tested my newest batch of homemade yogurt. I should blog about it soon. This was the third time I've made yogurt and I made a double batch for some experimenting. It turned out both the best and the worst results yet! ;) I shall keep you in suspense until I can do a yogurt blog post. If I put all the details in this post it will likely get lost in the archives quicker than I can sniff out chocolate. I want a less cluttered post for a topic that is informational in nature in case someone wishes to reference it later. Like myself to look back and see what worked and what did not. :)

By Tuesday evening I was throwing up from the pain and wearing on my body the contractions were doing. When they finally stopped near dark after the kids were in bed asleep I cannot even begin to tell you how relieved I was.

Wednesday promised to be another difficult day, with my uterus behaving much like the previous day. The kids were up too many times all night long and it didn't take long for the throwing up to start since I was again contracting and still hadn't recovered from the day before.

Thursday morning at 8am sharp the contractions began again. I see a terrible nasty pattern forming here...

But I was wrong! The contractions slowed to a stop around noon and the rest of the day was actually quite nice and even productive! After the kids went to bed I was cooking up some more beef to freeze cooked for use later, and when I went to put a fresh ziplock of browned beef in the freezer I saw that cookie dough from a week and a half before and had to have some. It was yummy, of course, since there were chocolate chips in it and what with chocolate is NOT yummy, I ask you? ;) I browned up 4 pounds of beef and loaded the dishwasher too. Okay technically I browned up 5 pounds of beef but I went ahead and made it into taco meat for the following night's supper. And then I was having a preggo snack attack so I had a taco. You know, to make sure it was edible. ;) Just taste testing!

Friday the 6th came much to my relief. It was a long week.

Chicklet and I had a tea party. Again. I've been getting my tea down, thanks in good part to Chicklet taking to the idea of having tea with Mommy every day and reminding me. It makes it much more fun to drink tea when your almost-4-year-old thinks you're having a daily mother-daughter tea party. :)

I've been crocheting on Bug's baby blankie too. I hope to have it done in time to present it to him for his 2nd birthday. *sigh* Oh how it grates on me to say that! In my defense, I DID have it partially done by his birth and he spent notable hours wrapped in the finished end of it on my lap as a newborn while I crocheted on the unfinished end. So he really did get to use it as a newborn... :-/ Really. But it's been unfinished for 2 years too long, used or not, and it would really really make me happy if I could get it done in time for his birthday. Which is WEDNESDAY! Oh my how time flies! He's still my little baby, how can he really be 2?!

Sunday the 8th my hubby left town on business again. :( The kids and I had stir-fry for supper. It was uneventful.

Monday morning started with me blowing my stuffy morning nose and starting a bleeder, which upset Chicklet. Again an uneventful day followed. I was up until 1am because when hubby's away I have this desire to sit up all night and guard the house. Not that I'm a heavy sleeper if the house NEEDED guarding, but I'm a control freak, what can I say? 1am is actually early for me to be turning in when he's gone. There was a funky storm and I was up listening to it rumble through and when it finally hushed up I went to bed.

Today an hour after I went to bed, at 2am, Chicklet came in my room to give me a hug. In the middle of the night? Umkaaaay... Then at 4am I woke up to the kids arguing! Bug has learned the word NO and it's his absolute favorite. Chicklet however takes personal insult when he says it. So he's in his crib grinching "No!" and then she respons with a snarl to "Stop saying No at me!" and they were getting louder and louder and I hollered for them to hush up and go back to sleep! It's 4am for goodness' sake! :p But no, No such luck. There was all manner of drama which I had to deal with until just before 6am when they finally fell back to sleep and I was able to go back to bed. The day RE-began at 8am as usual with Chicklet staggering from her bed to mine to snuggle. We got up, me very very slowly, and got Bug up, and then I blew my nose and started a bleeder again, just like yesterday. :-(
But after all that, this day ended up on a happy note because hubby got home and this was his last business trip hopefully for the year! At least for a good while because this coming Sunday marks 36 weeks pregnant (!!!) so they know he needs to be close to home from here on out in preparation for the big event. :) I'm so happy he's home for good! For a few months at least. So today was a very good day after all! And tomorrow my little Buggie baby turns 2 years old! No! If I stomp my foot and cross my arms and pitch a fit can I slow time down do you think? (You're thinking you know where my 2 year old leanred his NO fits... *wink*) If I thought it might work I'd try it. Children grow up way too fast! And next month Chicklet will turn 4! I'm feeling all nostalgic and sniffley now...

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. ;)

Life updates July 17-23

UPDATES!

Backtracking for a minute, the day before my last update, which I didn't mention in said previous update, the young man who mows our lawn was weedeating out front and his weedeater decided it hated my car and threw some rocks at it. The rearmost side window kinda... disintegrated. Being an awesome honest hardworking upstanding sort of young man, he told me right away and paid for the repair- I would likely not have noticed for days if he hadn't. We fired him. Okay no I'm just kidding! We told him he's all the more valuable to us for his honesty and have been reccommending him to all our local friends! There is nothing more important than someone who is both honest and hard working when you're making a business transaction! The fact that he told me right away is better than a million references or years of business experience to us. I highly doubt we'll ever be looking for a new lawn guy unless and until this particular young man decides to get out of the lawncare business.

July 17-23:
Saturday started out on a great note as Bug kind of slept in a bit so I caught him just waking up when I went to get him. This never happens- he's a little morning person! So I plopped him on the potty right off, knowing he'd have to go, and he did! He thought it was an uh-oh so when he started going he told me "Uh-oh! Ooooh nooo!" I told him it was GOOD to pee in the potty, did a happy dance, gave him an m&m, and Dada and Sissy came in and clapped for him too. He was lit up like Christmas by the time we got done celebrating. He tried a few more times that day but couldn't pee again. It's okay, he's just starting to realize what peeing even is! Plenty of time to learn to control it. He's not even 2 yet so I'm not worried. Besides with the changing table now in the bathroom, getting him on the potty often is much easier. He's bound to accidentally go again. And again. And someday he'll figure out what that gotta-go feeling is and then we'll be doing good! And having to buy stock in chocolate candies. ;)
The car window was scheduled to be fixed Monday so we were carless all weekend. I wound up walking as promised but alot more than I thought or should have considering. I think I walked about 18 blocks over the course of Saturday! I walked to a yard sale and back, to the farmers' market and back, and detoured to get some fresh eggs on the way back from the market. The yard sale I went alone but I was pushing a double stroller full of 70 pounds worth of toddlers the rest of the time. When I got home my feet were tingling and starting to swell and I was sunburned and heat sick and in so much pain! My husband would be going out of town on business for the first half of the week though so I decided to tough it out and not take a nap so I could spend time with him. I did go to bed early though because I was so tired and sore and my ankes were puffy and tingling.

Sunday Buggie was a bit stopped up so I gave him some apple juice which he didn't really even want- he took 2 sips. He also had what looked like a mosquito bite and it wasn't bothering him in the least but his sister thought he needed a band aid so we put a Dora band-aid on it. He was acting fine other than telling me he needed to poo and being a little clingy but not wanting to eat or drink much of anything. For supper he had a single serve container of applesauce because he wanted it and hadn't really eaten anything else all day. About 5 or 10 minutes after eating the applesauce he was sitting in my lap and began to whimper- 2 seconds before the applesauce came up. He spiked up a fever for a few hours but it ran for the hills when I gave him tylenol. And fever or not, 5 minutes after upchucking his applesauce he was bright and cheery and sweet as pie again. I was thinking what great timing, with hubby leaving town in the morning and not knowing what was wrong with Buggie! But Bug was cool all night (I know because I kept checking on him) and woke in a good mood, acting normal all day Monday.

Mama wasn't as lucky. I was feeling totally fine and then just suddenly blacked out. I have always had some forewarning before I pass out because of blood sugar issues so it's been years since I've gotten bad enough to pass out now that I know the warning signs. So to be going on about a normal day and then I'm checking my emails on Facebook one minute and all of a sudden come to conciousness as my head is 2 inches from the keyboard in a freefall. I felt just peachy dandy fine afterward too. NO clue what was wrong with me. I called my midwives' office and they wanted me to have someone drive me in to be checked but I told them I was out a car until later that day when the window guy was coming and my son had a mystery fever the night before so I was keeping an eye on him though he seemed just fine now and that I felt totally normal both before and after the incident. They told me just to make sure I kept eating enough protein and drinking enough water and if I felt weird within the next few hours I needed to come in. I felt fine though. And on a good note my hubby wound up not having to go out of town after all. Of course he got some serious runaround before they informed him of that but we were glad he got to come home as usual that night and by then the glass guy had fixed the car window and Bug had been acting great all day so things were definately looking up. :)
One bad thing did happen though and that was that Dora band-aid on my son's skeeter bite... apparently he's allergic. When he woke up and I was changing his morning diaper I noticed that his arm was swollen and red around the band aid tabs. I took that thing off and where the tabs had been there were patches with blisters upon blisters. I felt absolutely terrible! The bite however was just a tiny red dot almost not even there. My poor little fellow! :'( It's bad when a bandage does more harm than good... :(

After that we had a pretty uneventful, normal week, for a few days at least. Bug has been waking up alot at night though and I've been hitting the caffeine pretty hard to compensate. I also have not been out walking since then because Thursday after nap I got out of bed and couldn't even walk to the bathroom. Apparently my 18 block walk day did what all the walking so far has also done and enticed babygirl further into position. I knew it had helped her drop - Bug wasn't even head down until right before delivery and Chicklet was my first so I finally got a good experience at what happens in the lower internal region when baby drops... Right down onto a nerve she went so that it felt like knives in my cervix with every step. I was doing the crab walk at snail speed and gritting my teeth growling and boy the kids were looking at me strange. I could scarcely walk the rest of the night. I decided that I was not going for any more walks outside and most certainly not long ones. I'll walk an extra lap or two in air conditioned buildings for sure. I actually *like* walking, believe it or not. But not out in the cankle-inducing blistering heat and not so much that her little baby head cripples me by way of nerve-pinching. So I'll be backing off on the walking now. :( I wish I'd done more of it earlier on before it got so hot. Rain or no rain... I'll be looking forward to getting out on the weekends because there will be air conditioned stores to walk in.

Last Monthly Prenatal Appointment

I see it's been a week since I updated. Still "on break" from blogging but you may have noticed I popped in on Tuesday for Toddler Tales with pics from our cherry adventure! I figured it was time for a real update. I'll try to pop in for Toddler Tales again on Tuesday the 20th and here's a pregnancy/everything else update smashed all into one post for you in the meantime. Oh and thank you for all the lovely comments on my blog! ♥♥♥ I will get around to responding and/or visiting your blogs back eventually... really! :D I'll at least try my best... and I'll try to do that within the next week so they don't get buried or eaten by the internet monster that likes to eat my email notificatons sometimes. 

This week I had my last monthly prenatal appointment! From here on out it's every 2 weeks between appointments for a bit, then every week... and somewhere along the line around mid September-ish a birth story will be forthcoming. ;) Baby sounds good, I'm healthy, no concerns. Oh and she's head-down! YAAAAYYY!!! I knew that from the placement of the squirms and kicks and the way I suddenly can't breathe very well already though. ;) I am happy she's decided to get into position now. Bug was sideways (transverse) for so long that by the time he started trying to get into the head down position he kept slipping back into transverse. I know, I felt it. He would squirm with all his might and get head down and then I'd feel him slowly slip back down down down until he was again laying sideways. I think he got my uterus stretched out too much side to side and then it was hard to get enough leverage to stay head-down thereafter! Lol! He finally was able to stay mostly head down by my last appointment before his birth. Chicklet however was ever the impatient one like her mother, and was head down from 6 months on. This baby's about 2 weeks behind her big sister in going head-down. I'm just relieved because it was kind of nerve wracking to have Bug transverse for so long. I remember thinking, "Come on little fellow, you have to do this! I can push you out breech but I can't do sideways!!!"

In other news...
My tea drinking kind of got forgotten over last weekend and most of this week (but I'm about to have a cup right now! Water's heating!) and I haven't started back up walking again yet. A friend was going to come walking with me Saturday but couldn't come after all so I didn't go either. I should have. It's just been SO HOT out that every time I set foot out the door I feel like I can't breathe and need to puke so I keep putting it off even though my pelvic region is feeling pretty much totally recovered in the injury sort of way and more back to sore from weak muscles and lack of walking now. If only there were a nice air conditioned mall near here. Not so though- the nearest one is an hour away. So I need to just go later at night or something because I NEED to walk and I don't want the heat to stop me.

SO- tea here I come! And walking, watch out! This weekend I'm getting back on the bandwagon! ;)

On the nesting front, I think the nesting is rubbing off on my husband or something. :) He sorted some stuff in the kitchen, did a bunch of dishes, and cleaned the bathroom for me last weekend! I told him he's my hero! ♥♥♥ I haven't had any strange nesty urges this week. Oh wait... I collected and am in the process of washing clothes and toys and bedding that was technically "clean" but just stale from disuse or I decided it must be dirty from being drug around by the kids too much... Does that count? It does? Oh okay then I admit it I have been laundry nesting then. And I've been feeling the urge to sort the baby clothes into the changing table drawers, which I'm months overdue on doing. Maybe I'll go do that right now... WAIT! Must finish this post first! Okay sorry, got a little sidetracked there.

What was I saying? Oh yes I was going to tell you about Buggie's misadventure at the beginning of the week. My poor little Bugling! He was running through the kitchen and his sister was chasing after him and I opened my mouth to tell them not to chase each other over the slidey throw rug in front of the kitchen sink but mouth open was as far as I got on that because he was already falling, the rug sliding out from under him. Our upright freezer is on a platform so it doesn't block the vent in the kitchen and poor Bug's head hit the corner of the platform I guess. It's the only sharp thing in the vicinity so that's what I assume he hit, but it would take some fancy falling to have connected since it's pretty much flush with the front of the freezer and I had a rubbermaid box in front of it so his head would have had to have fallen into the space between the rubbermaid box and freezer at just the right angle. By the time I got to the other side of the island to see what was going on he was just laying on the floor screaming. I thought I saw some blood spatters on the floor as I scooped him up and his hands were reaching for the back of his little head. My heart skipped a beat in dread and I thought, "No no no..." I had one hand on the back of his neck/head and when I moved it, there was a bloody wound in the back of his head and I saw blood pumping glug glug glug out of it with each of his little heartbeats! I think I almost died when I saw it because I knew what it could mean. I was so afraid for him! I prayed and it literally slowed to a near stop as I was praying! And Bug stopped screaming when the blood stopped pumping out. The bleeding and screaming probably lasted a whole 20 seconds before it slowed to nothing but it was the longest 20 seconds of my life. I put an ice pack on it and Chicklet handed him his sippy cup and he started sucking on it and just laid in my arms for a while drinking his milk as I held the ice pack wrapped in a washcloth on his head. Hubby got home about 15 minutes after it happened and Bug was all happy to see Dada. We checked for concussion and looked at the wound. It looked about 3/4 of an inch long and was right in the middle of a large bump. But he was alert and there was no bleeding. A wee bit of oozing yes, but it was not bleeding outright. He was happy. Calm. No concussion. Extra cuddley but normal other than that. I didn't want him running around with a fresh head wound so I put some salve on it and hubby held him while they watched a DVD of farm animals. The kids rarely watch tv so having a DVD in effectively kept him still for half an hour. After which he was running around, stomping, dancing, spinning, flinging himself at me, and babbling on in his slurry baby version of English. You know, acting like a normal 23 month old. I of course being his worrying mother, hovered over him the rest of the evening and checked on him during the night. He was fine. He ate more than normal for dinner, slept like a log, and woke up feeling bright and chipper and ready to pester his sissy. A check of the wound revealed he still had a big knot on his noggin but... I could have sworn that cut was longer the day before! It looked amazing! Well it looked like a sore head wound, but in comparison to the day before it looked great! And again the next day it looked even smaller and better. And now a week later it's a little bitty bump with a little bitty scab on it. It's healing up so well it really is amazing. An I know just Who to credit with that... When he was laying in my arms with an ice pack on his head, Chicklet asked me, "Mama did his head get broken and the blood is coming out of it? Can you fix him?" I told her yes, but *I* can't fix him, God can! So we prayed together for God to 'fix baby Buggie's head owie' and so He has. It could have been so bad. As the blood was gushing out with his heartbeats he could have bled to death- it wouldn't take long for a tiny child. And I felt terror that my son was hurt and I didn't know what would happen. And in my terror the first thing I thought was to call out to the Great Physician to heal my baby, and He did. Starting with stopping that blood right as I was asking. And then healing up that head wound in record time! I could cry with thankfullness every time I think about it. My life has been full of so many miracles! Another precious miracle to add to my list of how amazing God is! And as I type this, my little Bug is sharing his Duplo blocks with me, bringing a smile to my face. :) He *should* be in bed but hubby worked late and when he got home and Bug was still awake ... well how could I say no to my two men giving me puppydog eyes. So Bug is hanging out with the adults tonight, much past his bedtime. I think this is the first time he's been allowed to stay up but somehow I don't think he realizes the significance. ;) He's just happy to be hopping from Dada to Mama and back again, sharing Duplos and taking an occasional drink from his sippy cup.

So I'm going to go snuggle up on the couch with my man and my mini-man for a bit, drink some of that tea I'm supposed to be drinking, and then put the Bugster to bed and organize some baby clothes. Sounds like a great way to spend an evening to me! ;)

A Condensed Update...

I'm hanging in there. :D Still not going to officially come back to blogging just yet... I'll try to post once in a  while though.
I need to get pics up of what we did 2 Tuesdays ago. Fun fun! I should have done that before I "went on break" but you know how these things go... My brain on hcg is more like a strainer and everything that is not immediately dire drains right through the holes. So that's my next objective if I get a chance to blog again soon.
But speaking of chances to blog- I DESPERATELY need a nap today so I'm not going to be long so lets get this show on the road. ;)

1. Independence Day was great! We watched fireworks from the car because I don't do mosquitoes. Seriously though, who does do mosquitoes? Ick. I didn't escape unscathed though because one followed me home and met his end the following evening after draining the blood from my foot and then attempting to taste test my hubby's bicep. He actually asked for a baby wipe and I turned around with a funny look wondering why on earth he needed a wipe and there was the remains of that mosquito. And yeah, he needed a baby wipe for that one. Very ew.

2. Been trying to get my red raspberry leaf tea down. I have not been able to stomach much beyond mild meat, almonds, some noodles and breads, some veggies, water, and lemonade for most of this pregnancy. It's taken me until the 3rd trimester to be able to keep down any pills (herbs or prenatals or any other vitamins) except for Mommy's Bliss Morning Sickness Magic. Thankfully the Morn. Sickness Magic has Vitamin B-6 and Folic Acid in it in addition to Red Raspberry Leaf and Ginger. So my wee one got at least that for the first 6 months while I couldn't keep anything but meat and nuts down. Now that I'm in the third trimester I can swallow pills again so I'm on a prenatal (although I can only get 2 of the daily 6 pills I'm supposed to take. Seriously these things are like horse pills and do NOT sit well in my tummy. I can't handle 6 in one day!) and a liquid calcium supplement (*GAG* oh *gag*) and sometimes before bed if I'm wound up I take Valerian Root capsules to help me sleep. So now that I've been taking those, I have been thinking it's like 7 months past time for me to be drinking Red Raspberry Leaf tea. My stomach has NOT handled tea well at all so far this pregnancy so I'm starting out with Earth Mama Angel Baby's Morning Wellness Tea! I SO LOVE EMAB products! I couldn't tolerate even this during the first or second trimesters but I'm trying to tolerate it now. My poor tummy cramps up really bad when I drink tea, and this one has been no exception. Go figure I can drink an occasional cup of decaff coffee but give me some herbal tea and my innards are staging a revolt. It's crazy... So anyway, I'm making myself because the Red Rasp. in the tea is good for my uterus. My plan is to work up to being able to drink the EMAB Third Trimester Tea which has a slightly higher Red Raspberry Leaf content. This is day 2. I got 2 cups of Morning Wellness down yesterday and my tummy freaked out and threatened to explode. Oh boy. That was a fun few hours. But it did stay down. Today I drank a cup this morning and then it's noon so I had another cup and as I was almost done the last sip my tummy freaked out again with the pressure and the cramps and other things you don't wanna know about... BUT hey it is still staying down. Uncomfortably so, but it's in there. Stay, tea, stay!

3. I NEVER use Spell Check- could you tell? :p I turned it on just now for the first time ever and then had a laugh. It freaked out over "prenatals" - apparently I can write prenatal but not prenatals. It also had a cow about "Folic Acid" - apparently it thought I was trying to write Felix or Fold or Folk. Um yeah... And of course EMAB for Earth Mama Angel Baby because that's just way too long to type out repeatedly. And now in my previous sentence where I typed "of course" it is highlighting just the se at the end of course. Um... Riiiiight. It's asking if I meant to type Sue or See. Now this is why I never use Spell Check. It bugs the daylights outta me. Did it actually catch any spelling errors? Not so much. Just ridiculousness. Speaking of which, it's now highlighting ONLY diculousness in the word ridiculousness and asking me if by diculousness I actually meant to type Ridiculousness. Which I did. It just has chosen to be BLIND to the first 2 letters of the word. Ugh! I'll just go turn that off now and go back to misspelling things my way, TYVM! :p Sorry, I guess you'll just have to deal with my typos.

4. So over Independence Day weekend we dogsat my friend's dog. The kids adored having her here. :) It was alot of fun. Poor dog was probably worn out from all the pestering of well-meaning toddlers while she was here. :) She's such a sweet dog! Very well behaved and good with the kids.

5. My walks were going really good. I was managing to get out about 5 days a week. Then I got hurt on the 3rd and haven't gone for a walk since then. I was walking the dog and she saw a squirrel. I have strong arms (I have toddlers- 'nuff said) so my arms weren't even sore from it, but the jolt somehow pulled both hips, groin, and tailbone all at once. It didn't hurt alot when it happened but later- ZOWIE! I was expecting some pulling but man that squirrel really must have looked juicy! LOL! Anyway, I do plan to resume walking once I'm healed up. I was just thinking last night that if I didn't feel so crummy from the tea I might try one lap around the block as a test run to see if I'm good to go again or not. So maybe tonight I'll get to do my test run and start the walking back up again. I'm scared that after not walking for 5 days in a row that I might feel like I'm starting all over again. IT took 2 weeks of it to stop hurting afterward before. Hope I can get back up to 8 blocks again in less than 2 weeks this time. That home-stretch panic has set in and I keep having this feeling of too much to do and too little time left to do it in.

6. Last night I cooked up 6 pounds of ground beef. I burned one of them and couldn't even blame it on my broken oven! Lol! Anyway, 5 of them, the non-burned ones, went into the freezer in ziplocks for after the baby is born. It's about time I started stashing away some meals. I have no relatives anywhere nearby so nobody to help me prepare. I'm on my own. When Bug was born, my sister and one of my friends sent us some meals to help out a couple times, which was such a blessing! I had not prepared anything in advance at all. So this time I am thinking if all I do is cook the beef and bag it, at least that's a start! LOL! It's better than being in that tired mom of a newborn and toddlers phase and I look at the clock and it's a quarter to 6 and I haven't even thawed the meat yet. Precooked it will thaw fast once I throw it into the hot rest of the meal! Haha...

7. So I'm still taking a break because I only have 2 kinds of days right now. The first kind is like today. I'm so tired and/or sick and/or sore that I just can't even handle the normal day to day things. I need a nap and Chicklet rarely stops talking long enough for me to get a good drift. Lol! I'm sure gonna try though. The second type of day is where I wake up on some sort of psychotic nesting hormone surge and something in my house gets seriuously majorly rearranged. Last Friday I spent all day cleaning my dining room. We haven't used the table in there for ... oh forever. Like a year. Because the leaves are broken and it's not big enough for the 4 of us without the leaves. So I started using it as a sewing room and sewing junk took over the room and it looked like a total disaster in there and I couldn't even find my sewing machine for all the mess. Friday I went to town in there. Threw out 3 garbage sacks, assorted cardboard boxes, and some fabric scraps. Washed the windows, walls, baseboards, windowsills, curtain, floors, chairs, table. Watered the forgotten aloe plant that I hadn't watered in a few months. Good thing it's a cactus... Planted some beans in a pot for kicks (to my amazement they have sprouted... LOL!). Put away the fabric and hangers and sewing machine. Cleared out some random junk that wound up in there. It took me from waking up until about 1:30 or 2pm to do all this and then I took a shower and collapsed into bed for a wanna-be-nap while Chicklet colored and talked at me. Then I can't remember if it was Monday night or Tuesday night my hubby moved the changing table dresser into the bathroom for me. I've been wanting it in there for a a while now but I didn't see how it was possible. Our bathroom is tiny and the only way to get that heavy beast of a changing table in there would be to pick it up and drop it into the barely-big-enough hole behind the sink. And my Superman hubby, after much maneuvering, managed to get it as far in as it would go and then did precisely that- he picked that thing up and lowered it into the hole. Oh my! Be still my heart! :) So the following day I had a nesting burst and spent the morning sweeping, mopping, and rearranging. It's very very very very very crowded in there now but somehow despite that it looks... well it looks cute and functional! LOL! It's going to be nice to have the changing table in the bathroom so I can use it for the new baby. It wouldn't fit in our room no way no how (our room's teeny too) and if it was left in the toddlers' bedroom I wouldn't want to go in there in the middle of the night with a crying baby and turn on the light to change her, KWIM? So now I can use the changing table in the bathroom. Hooray! And THAT little nesting bit has prompted a cloth diapering streak. I haven't really cloth diapered my son much. Barely ever. I lost most of the very few cloth diaps I had in the move the week he was born. So when my mom bought us some clearance Bum Genius for the new baby, and they arrived last Wednesday, I of course washed them up right away. And then when there was our bathroom with the changing table in it's new place, I couldn't resist putting the diaps together and using them on Bug. Now he wets WAAAAAAYYYYY too much to use them at night, but I've been using them during the day. I asked hubby if, if I keep track of how much I save by using cloth on Bug, we can take that amount and buy more cloth diapers with it. And then when the new baby comes I'll keep track of how much we save with her too, and we'll just go on buying cloth until we have enough to diaper our two in cloth fulltime (well except for Bug at night). So that's the plan. Oh and on the side, now that the changing table is in the bathroom, I put Bug on the potty every time I change him! He loves it! He hasn't peed in there yet, but hey, at least it's now become easy to get him sitting on the potty several times a day. Since I'm not motivated enough while pregnant to do the all or nothing, one day and we're done approach. Not that I have any potty training experience anyway. Chicklet was 3 years old and still making potty training my biggest nightmare when I got fed up after one awful afternoon and took away her diapers and told her NO MORE DIAPERS EVER. And she started peeing in the potty that very night and kept right on at it. Not to say there weren't accidents or testing me but for the most part she was done and she has not worn a diaper since that afternoon. So unless I want to wait until he's 3 and cut him off cold turkey, which I'd rather not wait personally, I have to start doing SOMETHING with Bug, preggo or not, and this having the changing table moved has just made that very doable and easy! Hooray!

8. So that's what my life is looking like. I'll update once in a while but for now I feel like if I'm having nesting days I need to take advantage of them and go for it, and if I'm feeling too crummy to do housework, I shouldn't spend my naptime opportunity blogging, I should just take a nap so I can hopefully feel alive enough to cook a nice dinner and finish out the day like a normal non-zombie human being. So here I go off to take a "nap" and de-zombie-fy. I'll catch ya in a few days! Thank you and **HUGS** to everyone who has been thinking of me and praying for me! You're the best! ♥

Taking a break

Okay my friends, I'm going to be out of blogging comission for a few days. We're not going anywhere special and I'm not in the hospital having preterm labor (at the moment) but honestly the hot weather has just set in here as of about a week ago and I'm absolutely miserable. I can't sleep because it's too hot. What sleep I do get is because I'm literally wrapped around an ice pack straight out of the freezer and when it melts I have to put it back in the freezer and wait for it to freeze again. We have central air, I just apparently cannot tolerate being pregnant in the summer heat. So I am EXHAUSTED and I usually blog during Bug's first nap while Chicklet plays with play-doh but I have been so exhausted I am having trouble just keeping up with the kids. Dishes and laundry are falling by the wayside. I can't concentrate. I'm still dealing with morning sickness.
So here's the deal, I have to pare it down to bare minimum. You know, survival mode. As much as I love blogging I will have to put it off for a bit until I can figure out a solution for how to get some sleep so I can function. :( I hope I'll feel better in a few days. It really really bugs me when I don't have any energy. It's the most irritating thing for me. It puts me in a really bad mood to have my brain wanting to do all this stuff and my body just won't GO. So it really rankles to have to back-burner my blog, but ya know how it is. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do until something else falls into place. Hopefully that will be SOON. I'm hoping for a few days. :D See how optomistic I am? Now I suppose it could be as long as a few months- until after the baby's born and the newborn adjustment phase is ending. But no, I don't want to think about not blogging for that long. The thought makes me sad! So hopefully I'll be back soon. Very very soon. ;) Have a great weekend! Or a great summer! (Just in case it's longer than I hope before I'm back.)

Updates on the pregnancy

Today marks 29 weeks pregnant! Wow! I have so much left that I want to do and it's FLYING by so fast this time. Oh how it dragged with my others; I never expected to be nearly 30 weeks and starting to get nervous about how much I still wanted to get done before she arrives. But I must say it's really such a blessing to have time flying instead of dragging. I was so miserable with my son by the end I was in tears in pain almost all the time, and then he decided to take his sweet time about coming out. So this flying time is strange but welcome. In fact I'm even grateful for the slight twinge of occasional panic about having too much to do in too little time because it only serves to keep the time flying. If I had everything done or close, it would slow it down I think. That's my theory anyway. ;) What do you think?
I have begin walking. I know, the third trimester is a bit late to begin an exercise routine! Lol! I don't really ever walk just for my health anyway, so it's ... um... not easy. Haha. I was inspired to start late rather than not at all by Kim over at Life In a Shoe! I'd venture to guess I'm a little (a lot) nore out of shape than she was before she started so I'm not really seeing any results yet, though she said she felt better almost immediately so I'm holding out hope- any day now!
Friday night I walked about 8 blocks. This was my first walk. I thought my hips were going to explode. Oh the pain! Ow!
Saturday we went to a carnival and a parade and wound up walking an estimated 12 blocks. I could barely move. I got home and sat down and the pain was radiating from my hips and I was contracting and guzzling water and sunburned and it was not pretty.
Sunday I walked 8 blocks again, knowing that the 12 had been overkill for someone who doesn't walk and having paid for it all night long. Well I think 8 may still have been overkill, or else I was living on leftover overkill from the previous day because I was again in alot of pain. So...
Monday night I went for a walk and only went 6 blocks. Still ow but I slept like a baby (SERIOUSLY WHOEVER THOUGHT OF THAT EXPRESSION NEVER HAD A REAL BABY...) and didn't wake up in agony the next morning! I'd have gone 8 but I wore different shoes than I had before and was getting a blister so I cut it short.
Tuesday and Wednesday due to hubby's schedule I was unable to walk alone. Thursday was looking to be the same deal and I really didn't want to go that long and wind up having to basically start over with the boot-camp period, KWIM? So Thursday I bit the bullet and took the tots out in the heat of the day in the double stroller and went 8 blocks. I should have just gone 4 or 6 but I pushed it, literally. And let me tell you pushing 60 pounds worth of adorableness in a double stroller on a broken up old sidewalk is a workout in itself and will induce contractions. I was in all kinds of pain that night, but oddly didn't have any more contractions after I got back home and I did not wake up very sore the next morning. I decided I need to keep at it because surely it will stop hurting quite so bad any time now, seeing as it's starting to be better by morning.
Friday however I was not ambitious enough to go out in the heat of the day with the double stroller again so due to hubby's schedule I skipped the walk.
Yesterday I walked 9 blocks. And even though I waited until 8:30pm to go... WOW it was so hot out! :p I coulda done without the roasty temperature for sure. During; contractions but strangely (for me) not painful ones. I rarely get the unpainful ones. Afterward; hips were not pleased. Very ow. Next morning; still very ow.
So that is my new ambition, exercise. Why am I doing it and why now when I never have had a walking routine before? Well you see I have had such intense hip pain already, and I remember how horrible the hip pain got at the end with my last pregnancy, to where I literally could not even sleep without waking up a dozen times a night crying in pain. I've already begun the stage where the hip pain occasionally wakes me this time. So my hope is that the walking will strengthen or loosen up or whatever those hips of mine need to stop being such a literal pain in the rump. It would be such a blessing to be able to be 8 months pregnant and not feel like just walking through WalMart my hips might explode. So that is my goal, and whenever I have an ache or pain it's my reminder and motivator to KEEP WALKING!

In other pregnancy related news, here's my before-baby to-do list in case you felt like being bored to death. ;)
-Finish Bug's baby blanket. (Yeah I'm so bad I still haven't finished it and he's almost 2!)
-Start and finish Baby's blanket.
-Sew Chicklet's summer dress I bought fabric for (for EASTER) before it's not even summer anymore.
-Finish mending baby stuff.
-Finish the changes to my blog I started how many weeks ago now and have half-done still.
-If I feel terribly ambitious, clone my one dress that I can wear pregnant so I have a spare. ;) Oh and sew those pajamas I have had cut out since Christmas so I have another comfy pair to sleep in.
-FIND those 3 BumGenius that seem to have grown legs and run away to hid someplace!
-Wishing but not counting on this one. Procure supplies to try making Newborn sized cloth diaps to fit baby until she's big enough for the BG. If I ever find those BG... *sigh* Did I mention they've been lost since we moved 2 years ago? Yeah.
-Finish taking back my kitchen from the clutter monster. This one deserves a whole post of it's own... LOL!
-Put up some freezer meals or at least some pre-cooked and pre-measured ground beef and chicken breasts for meal starters for postpartum.
-June; Parades, carnival, and take tots cherry picking.
-July; take tots to firework show. Hubby's birthday!
-August; Buggie's 2nd birthday!
-September; BABY DUE! Chicklet's 4th Birthday! BIL's wedding which I will not be able to go to. :(
-October; Hunting season. Ugh! Need I say more? Lol! Hope I am recovered enough to go for a visit with my Mom while I'm hunting widow. ;)

Okay I'm done rambling on and on now. :) If you remember to ask me about my list later it might help me to stay on track and keep plugging away at checking things off. Keep me accountable! Help me to keep going!

A Parade of Sharing

I didn't have time to post this last weekend, it was so busy! But here's an update on last weekend's fun. :D I wish I had some photos but I don't because my camera battery was dead when I grabbed it and I have still not found the charger! :(

Last Wednesday marked the start of the local yearly carnival. I love that it's early in the year as compared to most other cities' August and September carnivals because it seems I have a habit of being pregnant and about ready to pop around those end of summer months. ;) Besides, we get PARADES so double yippie-skippy! :D The kiddie parade was on a weekday evening and the kids loved it. Made out like bandits with the candy supply, which I have put up to ration out to them. There was a super sweet little girl who was sharing with my daughter too and that made my day. So many times when you go out to an event with little kids you get bombarded with other people's reasons why they don't want any more kids. By which I mean wild uncontrolable brats making life miserable for the other eventgoers, and tired uncaring parents ignoring them. Which is presumably why, when we arrived at the main parade on the weekend, the young man with a toddler girl whom we sat by immediately looked less than thrilled to have company. Infact, when I smiled at him and sat down, he looked pretty close to hostile. I almost got up and left. But I didn't, we sat right there beside them and God's blessings -innocent children- turned everything around. After a while another family with a little girl came and sat on the other side. And then, while waiting for the parade to start, the shy and sullen little girl with the unfriendly dad started sneaking smiles at Buggie and then talking to him- until her presumed dad moved her to sit between his feet away from us. After the candy throwing started, I encouraged Chicklet that since she'd gotten such a big handfull of candy she should share a piece or two with one of the other little girls. She gave some to the girl with the unfriendly dad. You should have seen the dad's face. Instant 180. I wonder if he'd taken her last year and had to watch some bully child grab up all the candy and make his baby cry. I know the feeling and I too came to the parade with some fear and protectiveness bristling for my babies. When candy is involved it's easy to expect children to behave like animals with no restraint, because if their parents don't teach them and it's been done to them, they will learn it to be an expected behaviour and will repeat it because it's the only way they know of to get the desired candy. So when Chicklet shared a piece of candy with that girl, her dad looked at both me and Chicklet and thanked us with an open and shocked smile. And then when more candy was thrown, the little girl shared a piece with Chicklet and her dad watched with a proud smile instead of moving her away from us again. And then the little girl on the other side shared with Chicklet, and so next time Chicklet shared back with her. And an older girl from a few families down ran up the road closer to the middle, collecting the pieces too far out for the toddlers to safely get to, and then brought them in and gave them to the intended recipients. It was an experience that was heartwarming as a parent. You always wonder what other people's kids are going to do that you will need to do damage control with your babies for later. But I am so happy to say that this was a parade experience that all those little ones, mine included, learned how awesome it feels to share, and what a great chain reaction it starts. :) Everyone walked away loaded down with candy, but more importantly, with smiles and a warm heart.

I'm alive.

I'm alive. Tired and sick and hot and sore but still riding the high of excitement that I'm carrying another baby! :) The insomnia is really starting to get to me again though which isn't good because it usually leads to depression and you know I don't wanna go there. :p Who would?! So I guess it's time to dig out my Valerian again and keep the Tums handy because it gives me heartburn. Lol!
Wednesday night I choked on a tuna bone. It was a bit scary. I coughed it up and then my throat was bleeding. Not alot, just like a papercut. So then I was coughing that up too. Fun. It slowed down pretty quick. My throat was super swollen and sore the next day. Still a little sore tonight as I write this but I've barely noticed it all day so that's good.
It's earwig season. I hate those things. I have to remember to turn off all the lights when the sun goes down or they come inside by the thousands. Not kidding. The basement is full of them. They are so gross. I guess we get those instead of cockraoches here- they behave pretty much the same for all intents and purposes except they're smaller, without wings, and have big pinchers on their behinds. Ew...
I am taking back my kitchen from the clutter-monster sloooooowwwwly but surely and it's really got me in a good mood! I hope to post more on this at a later date. For now I just wanted to pop in and say hey, how's it going, yeah I'm still alive, still excited about the baby, and got lots of fun family activities coming up in the next few weeks to post about.
I'll be back... muahahaha! ;)

update

Well I had lots of plans for this weeks posts but I have not been able to get to writing them. I somehow hurt my back Friday because when I woke up Saturday morning it was killing me. I almost NEVER take any pain relievers, and on the blue moon that I do it's half a dose of Tylenol or something. I have a very very low pain tolerance so it's important to me to not get used to pain relievers. I think if I did that I'd never make it through labor natural... :( So I avoid them like the plague, but I was going out with a friend Sat. so I took 2 Extra Strength Tylenol so I could enjoy my day. Unfortunately whatever I did to my back ... well the Tylenol didn't even touch it. By the end of the day I was hoping my friend didn't notice my cringing at every step but it was so hard for me to not cry (since now not only was my back in pain but my left hip kept trying to pop out too) at a few points when walking. I didn't want to call it quits- I was on a mission for bathroom curtains and I don't get out too often so spending time out with a woman friend is such a treat! Well the rain got to coming down SO HARD and it was snowing in the nearby mountains and COLD so we wound up getting rained on bigtime. The kids were all so sweet and well behaved though - I was so proud of them all! Anyway I had hoped the weather and my aches would cooperate and they did not, but it was still tons of fun.

Then Sunday I tried to let my husband do all the lifting, and spent most of the morning with a heating pad attached to my lower back and hips. In case you don't know it, those of us who grew up on a farm are very much NOT inclined to let the hubby help with anything we think we should be able to do ourselves. We have a tendency to forget that being 8 months pregnant means we should probably not lift the couch or rearrange the bedrooms. So it was very difficult to let him do it and if it weren't for being in pain I'm sure I'd have forgotten and tried to carry everything around myself as usual. Unfortunately despite taking it easy, this morning my back is better but my left hip is really on strike. I've spent most of the day so far (and it's 5pm now so that really is most of the day) doing alot of nothing and being in great pain. I can barely walk unless I'm holding onto something because my left hip is so thoroughly messed up right now. I really have no idea what I could have done that it would not have improved last night while I slept but instead got WORSE. Oh so much worse. And sitting here hurts almost as much as laying on the couch, which is only a slight improvement from walking. I'm not really sure what to do to fix it. I'm at a loss. Usually if I arrange my pillows and heating pad comfortably and get a good night's sleep, My aches and pains are pretty well gone by morning. Not so much this time. I really wasn't prepared for this to happen until I was 7 or 8 months along. If I can't resolve it, it will likely just keep getting re-injured and hurting until the baby is born and I don't find that to be an acceptable option.

Then there's the morning sickness. It was kind of alright for about 3 weeks there and then just came back again. I hate throwing up and have been fighting it all day and for the last few days. The fatigue came back again too. Boom. It's like I've been thrust back into the first trimester again, only with third trimester aches and pains added.

So if you get a post out of me other than this one this week it's probably a good sign. ;) I'll try to at least do Toddler Tales tomorrow in case anyone wants to link up! Have a great week!

My monitor is going out, modem too.

So just before Christmas when my husband got me a new computer to replace my old dying one, I declined to have him get me a new monitor too. I like my monitor and it was familiar and reliable! So I thought. Well the last couple weeks my modem has been overheating and my monitor starts getting all twitchy like it's having a seizure and then blacks out. *sigh* So despite a new and working computer tower, I may be vanishing soon and for an indeterminable amount of time due to monitor and/or modem issues. Just thought you should know. *sigh*

Camera found, Family visited, Memories made!

It's been a very busy past week and a half here! :) First of all, my husband took last week off work because Monday was our anniversary! Mother's Day was, as I'm sure you know, on Sunday. I am not sure if I mentioned this on here or not but it seems the second I hit 20 weeks pregnant, that's when the contractions started, and sometimes they HURT like crazy. Now you should know this is typical for me to spend the last few months contracting. With Buggie I spent pretty much the whole pregnancy scared that he was going to refuse to wait and be a preemie. There were alot of real bad scares . Then I hit the magical "safe zone" of 36 weeks and the contractions just... stopped. He wound up being born 2 days "late." This time it kind of caught me off guard when the contractions got so painful at 20 weeks because they hadn't been very often or painful during the first half. It made me realize that I need to make it a priority to go see my mom ASAP - before I'm too far into my incessant-painful-contraction phase to be driving through miles and miles of uninhabited prarie. So we made our plans to drive up on Mother's Day and stay for a few days so I could spend some quality time with my mom.

The drive on Sunday went better than expected. Buggie does not ride in the car well so we had some ...moments... and he wouldn't take a nap for longer than a few minutes at a time. But I was expecting way worse so I'm thankful it went as well as it did. We arrived at my parents' house at dinnertime and there was a family BBQ in progress for Mother's Day. My inlaws, and my sister's inlaws were there, as well as us and my sister's family. My baby brother lives out of state now so he was not there. The BBQ was great and it was nice to see everyone at once. The only bad thing was how bad it seemed to wear my mom out. The last "guests" left at nearly 11pm and by that time my kids were already in bed and hubby and I were eager to join them. My poor mom sleeps in a chair in the living room so she looked absolutely exhausted by the time she was able to go to sleep.

I had found my camera to take on the trip but, other than snapping a few scenery pics out the car window on the way, I was so used to not having it that I sadly forgot to take pics of most of our time up there. :(

Monday, our anniversary, we visited my husband's parents in the morning and then drove an hour to another city so hubby could visit his brother and I could meet up with a friend. Actually I've known this friend for years but only on the internet and telephone so it was a real treat to finally get to meet her in person. :) Her kids and mine had so much fun together and I really enjoyed our visit! Here's my car all packed full of kids, aren't they cute? My 2 are on the left and my friend's girls are on the right. I was walking around the front of the parked car to buckle Chicklet in as my friend snapped this pic. :) (So in case you're wondering why she's the only one not buckled in, that's why- I hadn't waddled my preggo self all the way around the car yet!)

After that we took a drive across the state line to see the house my sister is trying to buy. Then all the way back to my inlaws, and left the kids with them for an hour or so while hubby and I went out to a quick Chinese dinner for our anniversary. Happy 8 blessed years to us! :) Then we zoomed back to the inlaws to pick up the kids and drove back up in the mountains to my parents' house and went to bed. It was a reeeeeeeally long day but a a good day! :)

The next day my hubby was in and out. He went out varmint hunting and took a drive and went to town for milk. Me and the kids spent all day just hanging out with my mommy (and my dad when he wasn't working!). It was so wonderful to be able to spend a whole day with her! Again, I wish I'd been better about remembering my camera and taking more pictures! I did get some of Chicklet doing a puzzle with Grammie and Grampy:

And hubby got a few of Buggie and I -Buggie was "flying" in case you were unsure. ;)

Bug got a tremendous kick out of the hummingbirds at my parents' feeder. He was running round their front yard giggling and shouting "Zoom! Zoom! Catch 'em! Catch 'em!" while clapping his hands in the air in the general direction of the zooming hummingbirds. Of course I forgot I had my camera until we were all back inside and Bug was busy with the toys and had forgotten the birds. I did take a couple pics of the hummingbirds once I finally remembered the existence of my camera.

The next day, Wednesday, we made the long trip home.

I took this pic at a rest area because the cloud shadows looked really awesome on the prarie below. Don't let the snow fool you; it was a nice warm day with a cool wind.

The kids did AMAZING on the drive! I think Bug only had one meltdown the whole way home! And Chicklet didn't have a single potty accident the whole time we were away from home! We were so proud of them!

I hope you enjoyed my little recap with a boatload of pics! Or perhaps you did not; so sorry to have bored you half to death! ;)



P.S. Don't forget tomorrow is Toddler Tales Tuesday! I'd be tickled pink if you would join me in posting the cute things our toddlers say and do!