As Promised.

I don’t remember the last time I went so long without blogging. I really don’t. Do you want to know the worst of it? It drove me mad. I was out of town, and during that time I had some fun experiences, some crazy experiences, and a HECKUVALOTTA hormone issues.
And I had nowhere to write it all out.

On my way back into town, we stopped off at my baby doc appointment. For weeks, I’ve been concerned about how big the baby is. She feels much heavier than my others did, and she always measures at least a week ahead of schedule. According to my cycle, I should be due on Christmas Eve. I should be 32 weeks.
But according to my ultrasounds, I’m 34 weeks. I’m due on December 12th.
I could have SWORN the doctor only bumped my due date up to the 19th. But I was wrong.
And THAT’S why the baby feels so big. Because she is so big.
She’s right on track.
When I had my son at 36 weeks, I went in for my 6 week visit and my OB said something along the lines of, “Remember next time you get pregnant… you cook them fast.”

Apparently so.
I must have an accelerator button on the inside of my uterus, or something.
Anyway, knowing that my due date has been bumped up a week and knowing that I’ve never carried a baby past 37 weeks… I kind of went a little nuts.
I’ve spent the past few days in a whirlwind of emotions.
I’m really scared to have this baby. I’m stressed. I’m nervous.
I know I’ve done this before and I know the baby will come and everything will work out, but you can’t speak Normal to Crazy. And I’m CRAZY.

I should tell you that before I went out of town, I had a steady pace going. I cleaned out from under the bathroom sink -our medicines are now organized. I dedicated an entire day to the kids’ room -I told them if they would just clean it up really quick (get the basic stuff off the floor) we would take a break and drink chocolate milk and eat lunch and then we would REALLY tackle their room.
I said that at 10 am.
And FIVE HOURS LATER, their room hadn’t been cleaned. It would have taken them maybe MAYBE 20 minutes.
My husband came home early to find his sweaty, huffing, unbalanced wife heaving toys OUT of the kids’ room and onto the living room floor.
“EVERYTHING IN THIS ROOM HAS A PLACE!” I shouted, dolls and Matchbox cars flying over my head.
“NOTHING IS IN IT’S PLACE!”
Stuffed animals, Barbies, plastic tools went sailing…
“BY THE TIME WE ARE DONE THIS ROOM WILL BE IMMACULATE!”
As if they even know what that means.
“NO ONE IS EATING LUNCH UNTIL THIS PILE IS GONE AND YOUR ROOM IS CLEAN!”
Tears, sobbings, groans…

That pile grew to even greater heights before we were through.
And finally.
At 5:30 P.M.
The pile was cleaned up. And lunch was served. I gave the kids some leftovers from the night before.
“Let’s hurry up and go to the store,” I grumbled to my husband, “I’ve got to get stuff for dinner and the sooner we leave the sooner we get back.”
My husband planted his hands on my shoulders.
“You are a grouch,” he said, “Go to the store by yourself. Take a break.”
I cried into his shirt for a good 10 minutes -I’m so grateful for him. Not just any man would be such a sport. In truth, I WANTED to go by myself. The last thing I wanted to do was haul my children around Wal-Mart. Two hours later, I was home. The kids were asleep. My husband and I stayed up late watching a comedy (heaven knows I needed that comedy).  It was called “Wild Target.”

via

I recommend this movie, BUT you should know that there’s 2 f-words and one sensual scene. Normally that would be enough for me to say, “Don’t watch it.”
But the weird humor in it was enough to make it really worthwhile. Which reminds me, don’t watch this if you have a normal sense of humor. But if you love British humor, this is definitely worth seeing.
It also could have been that my soul was humor-parched and anything remotely funny was just what I needed. Either way, it’s on Netflix Instant Streaming.

Moving on:
As I was crawling into bed after the movie was over, my daughter came running out of her room and into the bathroom.
Where she puked.
I went to her side and pulled her hair back, rubbed her back.
“I HATE THIS!” She shouted (can’t think where she picked shouting up…)
“I’m so sorry, sweetie,” I said, trying to comfort her however I could, “What made you sick?”
“THAT FOOD!” She continued shouting, referring to the leftovers I had fed the starved children.
“The food?” I asked.
And she puked some more.
“I TOLD YOU WE SHOULD HAVE HAD SANDWICHES!” She shot me THE most accusing look on the face of the planet.
A few hours later, she was up again, sick.
And then the boy was up. Sick. Twice.
It was food poisoning for sure.

I felt horrible. I still do. And my daughter still hasn’t forgiven me. I don’t think she ever will, actually.
The next day, I did something I never do. I told my husband what to do with his day.
“The baby will be here soon and we need to clear out the corner in our room where the computer desk is,” I said, “That’s what we’re going to do today. You don’t have to help me, but it’s getting done one way or another. And you might not like the way I do it.”

Let’s just say that pregnancy brings out the TOWANDA in me.

via

“We can do it,” he said. He detests Towanda.

But then he had a TV offered to him at a price he couldn’t refuse. And I couldn’t refuse because my husband has talked of wanting nothing but a new TV for years. We’ve also never had our own TV. We’ve always borrowed.
We’re The Borrowers.

The price was so low and the TV so big… so he bought it. And we had to clear off the computer desk to set the TV on it because the TV wouldn’t fit in our entertainment Armoire.
We needed a new entertainment center and we needed to find a place for the old entertainment armoire.
And we still had to get rid of that BLASTED computer desk.

So we bought a new entertainment center. It’s one we’ve both wanted for over a year. We ended up dipping into our savings and using up some of our Christmas budget:

Merry Christmas to us.
And as sick as I am over spending so much money all at once, I am happy that we were able to get the entertainment center AND the TV for much cheaper than a brand new TV set alone. So that’s something.

With our center all set up, my husband worked tirelessly to get the house back in some form of working order. In the middle of it all, he was called out of town for work.
Which left me alone (adult wise) to pack for a four-day vacation to the big sunny valley. I packed us up and drove us down on my own. I left the house in shambles because Towanda had lost her oomph somewhere between her backache and her insatiable hunger.

Our vacation will need a post all on it’s own. And it will get one.
But first.

As we drove home from vacation together, we were excited to go into my doctor visit and hear the baby’s strong heartbeat. Little did we know, we’d be walking out of the office completely dazed.
And then we’d come home to a house in shambles. There was clean laundry piled on the couch, cardboard and Styrofoam overtook the living room, a giant bag of trash I’d forgotten to take out was waiting for us…

That’s when hormones and stress did a complete takeover. Luckily, my husband handed me his debit card and begged me to PLEASE order a pack n’ play online before I lost my mind.
We don’t have a place for the baby to sleep, and we’ve saved for a pack n’ play but we hadn’t ordered one yet.
So I did. I ordered it. I closed my lap top. I stood up.
“I’m going to bed,” I said to my husband, leaving him in a filthy house with two awake children.

I wanted to feel badly about it, but I couldn’t. I didn’t. I was so stressed that a removal of my company would be nothing BUT a blessing on his head.

I closed my eyes and drowned out the thoughts of the filth I would wake up to and how the next day was Halloween and how I NEEDED to make it homey and fun and warm for the children because THAT’S WHAT MOMS DO.
I woke up the next morning, and my house wasn’t as filthy as it was supposed to have been.
SOMEone cleaned it. And that someone confessed that they’d stayed up until 1 AM cleaning.

And what do you know? Between ordering a pack n’ play, getting some solid sleep (I hadn’t slept well on vacation), and waking up to a house cleaner than it should have been was JUST the right formula. I was a happy lady. Halloween went off without a hitch, warm and wonderful traditions stayed intact, and we all went to bed filled to the brim with what the kids like to call “Carnival apples.”
More on that later as well.

Last night, my husband and I stayed up late late late again. We moved things around. Situated this and that. Pulled out this and that. Our house looks dramatically different. And how fitting since our lives are about to be dramatically different.
It’s a wonder our marriage has survived this pregnancy and no foolin’. I think if my husband hadn’t been an equal partner in getting us into this pregnancy thing, he’d be long gone by now.

I’m not on my best behavior.
And I WANT to be. I TRY to be. But I CAN’T.
In the meantime, I missed an entire week of my pregnancy and realistically speaking my baby could be here in 13 days (which was how far along I was when I delivered my son).
THIRTEEN DAYS!
Wouldn’t you be a mess of panic too?!?!
I’m not nearly as panicy today… mostly because the pack n’ play is in transit, the jalapenos have been canned, the computer desk is gone, and the armoire has been relocated to my bedroom where it now plays host to our linens AND the baby’s clothes.
Today I’m canning tomatoes.
Tonight, we’re decorating for Christmas and washing teeny, tiny, pink clothes and blankets.
And here’s a terrible picture of me in a dressing room at Ross. I was just a few days away from being 34 weeks and I didn’t even know it.
Also: I brought that shirt home with me along with a pair of non-maternity converse sweats that are so comfortable I haven’t really taken them off at all. They’re LONG. Do you know how hard it is to find long sweats?! And all I’m saying is that they were in the maternity section even though they AREN’T maternity. They were the only pair. And they’re a perfect fit.
We were Made For Each Other.