Mother’s Day and The Snuggly Duckling

My Mother’s Day was the best. My husband kept apologizing because he felt like he hadn’t given me a nice Mother’s Day. He was feeling bad that I picked out my own gift.
“But I really wanted it,” I said, “And I’m really happy with it.” Truth: I’ve only taken it off to shower. Other than that, it has been a constant on my neck (even when I sleep). I’ve been wanting one of these beautiful necklaces for a year (when I ordered two -one for my mom and one for my mother-in-law), but a nest with two eggs just seemed so… empty. I’m not kidding when I say the DAY I got a positive pregnancy test, I gushed, “I can get a bird nests necklace now!”
And so… I did.

I was so excited to get my necklace -I literally DREAMED about it.
During church, one of the speakers read this quote and it made me cry (not hard to do these days, but still…)

“You are the trip I did not take; You are the pearls I cannot buy; You are my blue Italian lake; You are my piece of foreign sky.”
― Anne Campbell

After church, we went to my niece’s 6th birthday party. My brother and his wife grilled hamburgers and hot dogs, and everyone who came brought something to add to the meal. That means I got to eat like mad without having to cook or clean, and THAT, dears, is Utopia.
After lunch, we went up to my Mom’s house with my trusted Lappy and we were able to skype with my sister, Julianne, who has been in the Philippines for not quite 5 months. She’s fluent in the language, by the way, because she’s a champ.

There’s just something about seeing her FACE that makes life seem so much better. She has a year left before she’ll be home, and man. I miss that girl. It’s crazy to think that when she gets home, I’ll have a 5 month old baby. Dad was able to give her a picture slideshow of her horse’s new foal, and Julianne was thrilled.

I’ve been looking forward to her call for months and months -and it did not disappoint. She’s such an amazing person.
My parents gave me a beautiful package.

The paper sticking up out of the book is my husband’s Mother’s Day letter -he writes me one every year. I save them all.
I’ve been reading through President Uchtdorf’s “Forget-me-not” talk, and it really is so simple and beautiful. He talks about our tendency to compare our weaknesses with other’s strengths. Isn’t that the truth? He goes on to say that while we can turn our weaknesses into strengths, it is a long term goal and we need to focus on our small successes along the way and be fully aware that Heavenly Father recognizes our small successes and they are NOT small to Him.
I read that, and (you guessed it) I cried.
One of my biggest weaknesses is my housekeeping abilities. I am not a great housekeeper, and I really want to be. It’s so important to me. I have to work REALLY hard at it, and as the years go on I AM getting better. But I wish I just WAS perfect at housekeeping. I want a clean house for my family.
But as I read that line, I thought… He knows my microwave is clean? He actually cares?

For years, the inside of my microwave was the BANE of my existence. It took at least an hour to clean, and I shriveled with failure every time I opened it and went to pop a bag of pop corn. And then my aunt, who is great at housekeeping, suggested microwaving a wet rag for 5 minutes. She told me if I did that, all the gunk would just wipe right off.
She was SO right.
Now I microwave a small bowl of white vinegar for 5 minutes, let it steam for a while and then wipe everything clean.
My microwave is ALWAYS clean and it only takes me 5 minutes once a week! A small triumph I thought no one cared about, but the fact that my Father in Heaven knows how hard I’m trying… how much better I hope to be… how my microwave is clean now when just 2 years ago it was NOT… it means the world to me.

Yesterday, my husband and I spent the day in the city with our kids. We ALL had doctor appointments, and the day was… exhausting. Our doctor appointments started just before 9 AM and ended just after 3 pm. After that there was banking that needed attending to and a heap of shopping. And for the first time this pregnancy, my husband spent an entire day by my side. Even when he’s off, he’s generally not WITH me with me. He’s usually running around outside or running to the feed store or the hardware store, but yesterday he was stuck.
“I need food,” I said, my stomach turning knots around 11 am.
“Didn’t you eat breakfast?” He asked.
“Yeah, I ate a fat bowl of oatmeal and topped it with raisins, but babe. that was this morning. I’m getting sick.”

We hit up Wendy’s dollar menu. As I ordered, my husband started to say, “That’ll be all” TWICE but I cut him off by adding things to the list.
As we sat down, he looked over the receipt. I had ordered as much food as he had. What’s more: I ate it all.
“It must be a boy growing in there,” he said, “You’re eating like a horse.”

OKAY. Is that not the most offensive thing you could say to a pregnant woman?! It’s not MY fault I have to eat pretty much constantly. If I don’t, I get so sick! And snacks won’t cut it with this kid… I need FOOD. I need MEALS. It’s downright awful. I feel guilty as I shove food into my mouth, thinking about how much extra stuff I’m feeding my baby.
While we were shopping, I timidly told my husband that I needed to eat. He stopped dead in the middle of Sam’s Club.
“Again?” He asked, disbelieving.
It was the horse comment all over again.
Yes, again! I’m Fat Albert!

He fed me again, and watched in wonderment as I packed away a hot dog like it was nothing. He even bought and snacked on popcorn while he enjoyed the show.

The last thing I wanted to do yesterday was step on the scale at the doctor’s office. I’ve been eating SO much and SO often and I’ve taken up soda-sipping (something I usually never do just because I don’t like it much) AND the amount of exercise I’m doing has GREATLY decreased… my poor baby.
And guess what?
I haven’t gained any weight at all (so far). That dang baby is USING all of that FOOD! I could be wrong, but I think I’m growing Captain America in my uterus.
Although from here, the baby just looks like a snuggly duckling. A very hungry, very small, snuggly duckling:

I’m 5 days farther along than I thought. Tomorrow I’ll officially be 9 weeks -three weeks left in the first trimester! Unless I actually AM a horse… in which case, I’ll be gestating a little longer.

And I’ll be honest, if I hadn’t woken up to living room full of folded laundry compliments of my sweet husband, I would have absolutely tortured him to pieces with horse comments.
There’s no end to what this mare can do -just try me.