It Happened Early

Kapow.

A Marathon - of waiting

The last few weeks of pregnancy remind me of what I would guess running a marathon would be like.  Because let's face it, even in tip-top shape, I hate running to the end of the street.  How could I ever know the reality of actually running 26 miles?  I say this because in my mind I picture marathon runners periodically thinking "just make it past the next two trees."  "Only two more street signs and then I'll be within viewing distance of ______."

I think with the mind of a marathoner at the end of pregnancy.  I've been saying things like that to myself all week now.  I cleaned all the bathrooms today, and as I did I counted out that I would probably only scrub the toilets 3 more times until the baby came.  I only drive the school and kindergarten carpools one more time each, and after that the baby will be here before my next turn.  Week 35 has brought new pains I don't remember from previous pregnancies.  I vainly hope they all mean I'm dilating early and I won't have to wait even until an induction date.

Yesterday I was wondering what women did back before elective induction existed.    Knowing it will be "no longer than" keeps me going.  I have much in the way of retrospective sympathy for my poor mother, whose second pregnancy was 16 days overdue.  I'm sure much of it has to do with my congenital lack of patience.  It's a disorder I've almost given up trying conquer.  Even so, if I began my quest anew, now would not be the time!

In a previous post I mentioned ricocheting off the wall.  For your information, I'm predicting my official time of impact with The Wall will be the afternoon of Monday, Sept 29th.  Just so you know.

The True Cost of Pregnancy

I have rhinitis of pregnancy:  AKA - I have a stuffy nose all the time.  Plus I have the standard last trimester always-in-the-bathroom-itis.  I hadn't put two and two together until this morning, but our household budget has stretched to accommodate the cost of extra tissues (half of a Costco case-worth over the last 4 months!) and extra toilet paper.  It is sad when you change the TP roll today and remember which day last week you did that task....

On the upside, I had a doctor's visit today and I am dilated to 1+ cm.  Not bad for 35 weeks.  I'll certainly take it!  I am ricocheting off the wall though.  Not in the "I'm excited and jittery just like when I was a kid" sense.  More in the sense of, I haven't quite Hit The Wall yet, but I've touched it and bounced back a few times in the last couple of days.  I'm just getting ready to be done being pregnant.  I love the many iterations of this sentiment you can find in parenting/childbirth magazines:  

"Whoever designed pregnancy in the first place knew we'd never be willing to go through labor if the whole nine months was a bed of roses.  That last month makes labor seem like the best party in town."

My friend Liz brought her baby home from the hospital today.  I held him for a while when I went to visit and take her a baby gift.  Luckily, it made me excited, not just to be done being pregnant, but excited to have my new baby arrive!   I hope she is as cute as my other children.  I hope she sleeps as well or better than my other children.  I hope she weighs a lot so that more of this baby weight counts as her instead of as me!  I hope she is healthy.  I hope Nathan really takes 1-2 weeks off work like he said he would/could.  

I just realized that as big and round as I feel, I wore a red shirt today.  I bet I look like a giant garden tomato.   Oh, sad but true.  :-)

A Scooter in the Mire

Sunday was Rebecca's birthday.  The whole week before she was so cute and would say, "I'm going to be 3 on my birthday!  It will be Sunday."  

She's still mastering the art of displaying Just Three fingers!

She didn't really ask for any specific presents, but she knew she wanted a yellow (her favorite color) cake shaped like a butterfly.  I think she is a somewhat unique toddler, because when I gave her flavor choices, she picked lemon.  Not a lot of three year olds would pick that flavor over chocolate or strawberry.

The butterfly masterpiece.  Notice the bottom left wing has wonky Lifesaver spacing?  She was in charge of that one.  If it had been up to her, I think every single gummy Lifesaver on the cake would have lived on that one wing.

I think she was confused about appropriate holiday greeting responses, because, just like at Easter or Christmas, when I would say, "Happy Birthday, Rebecca!" she would respond with, "Happy Birthday Mommy!"  I told her it wasn't my birthday it was just her birthday, a minute later, she told me, "I know it's not your birthday.  But Happy Birthday Mom!"  

Her gift from Nathan and me was a little Disney Princess scooter.  She was so excited about it when she opened the box, and thought it was awesome that she could put the wheels in the little basket.  When Nathan tried to assemble it there was a large wad of solder on the inside of one of the hollow metal pieces, and it wouldn't go together.  (He even broke a screwdriver trying to chip it off the inside of the scooter handle!)  

What a sad combo:  a poor three year old's only birthday for 7 years to fall on a Sunday and her only gift that was a toy ends up defective!  (Her other presents were clothes, storybooks, and an umbrella.)  

Even though it was technically a book, this gift from her aunt and uncle was pretty awesome.  What little girl wouldn't want a princess book as big as HER that comes with stickers and magnetic prince and princess dolls?

Rebecca loves these Little Critter books she got from my mom.  She reads them more than once every day.  My favorite line is from I Just Forgot.  It says, "I took my bath, but I didn't forget to use soap.  I just don't like soap."  The one she likes best is I Was So Mad.  She calls it the 'Mad Book.'

She loves her Dora umbrella that Braden gave her. 

 (Find of the year, folks:  it was $3.00 on clearance!!)

After counting the five pictures of Dora on the umbrella, Rebecca declared,

 "My umbrella is ALL Dora'd!!"

I was so impressed at how "mature" my little girl acted about the Scooter Snafu of 2008.  I told her, "Rebecca, I'm really sorry.  Your scooter is kind of broken, so Daddy can't put it together.  But we can take it back to Target and get a new one that isn't broken."  All she said was, "Oh, OK.  Can I go with you when you go to Target?"  

I didn't realize until she asked if she could come to the store for the third time that she thought we were going to go right then.  I even thought about bending the Sabbath (hey, scooter in the mire, here folks) or even sending Nathan to return it right after his Ward Welfare meeting (because that wouldn't have looked bad at all to have my husband at Target in his suit and tie on the way home from a leadership meeting).  But I concluded that it would be a more valuable example to stay home.  I ended up saying, "Oh honey, I'm so sorry.  It's Sunday, and we don't go to the store on Sunday.  But you and I can go after breakfast tomorrow morning and trade it together."  Of course, then she burst into tears.  :-(  She calmed down when I reminded her that Grandma Belliston was coming over after lunch for her birthday dinner and to have cake together.

The next day we returned it, got a replacement, and successfully assembled it.  Whew!  There were two varieties when we went back to pick out the new one.  She opted for a Dora scooter instead, because she apparently thinks ALL princess scooters are defective.  But hey - I didn't care what kind she picked as long as she was happy.  (And she is...)

I got Fresh Today

I got a whole box of fresh peaches from my friend Liz and a whole boatload of tomatoes from my garden yesterday.  So I did two things I've never done before:  I made a fresh peach pie and spaghetti sauce (with homegrown tomatoes and green peppers) from scratch.

My kids told me the sauce was better than the other kind I make.  Rebecca ate as much of the spaghetti as I did.  Nathan is bugging me to write down the recipe "just like I did it so I can make it again."  Hopefully I can recreate it; because I was kind of flying by the seat of my chef pants.

Still lots of peaches left, so tomorrow I think I'll make freezer peaches.  Since he loves freezer peaches, I am Nathan's dream come true.  I hope he realizes it.  :-)

Thanks for the peaches Liz!  (And thanks for the tomatoes, self!)

I'm not embarrassed after all

So, after reviewing the results of our informal poll, it looks like I'm about like all the rest of you.  I'm a deep-clean the entire house in one day kind of person: dusting, vacuuming, disinfecting kitchen & bathrooms.  That all happens every week to week and a half.  There is spot cleaning here and there (like doing the kitchen counters with those disinfecting wipes in between the serious Clorox Clean up on cleaning day.)  However, the house is always tidy, with no dishes in the sink, etc.

The final consensus:  The majority of us are weekly cleaners (53% for both disinfecting and vacuuming).  Some others are every two weeks or twice a week.  No one would admit to the slovenliness of once a month cleaning.

Have I mentioned I love having children old enough to learn the value of chores?  Cleaning day is much more enjoyable now that I have someone to share it with:

"Dusting and vacuuming is our one true joy."

My Famous Face

I thought this was funny.  Never in a million years would I have picked these two as our Celebritwins.  Aren't all you 70's fans out there jealous that I got to marry Greg Brady (almost)??

You do the Hokey Pokey...

And you turn yourself about, just like the baby did!  Hallelujah, she's finally vertex!  (I suspected she had turned around 3 or so weeks ago at 29 1/2 weeks, but today's ultrasound confirmed it.)  She and I are growing well - she weighs about 5 pounds or so, and I weigh about... a little more than that.

Forearm and hand

Frontal view of face.  The white spot in the center of the picture is the nose, and the dark circular depressions just above that are the eyes.  Still hoping she's prettier than this upon arrival.

The dark blob outlined in white in the center of the frame is her foot.  The white area to the bottom right is probably the side view of her head.

Last night Braden was really cute.  I invited him to come to the doctor with me and told him he would be able to see another ultrasound.  His response:  " I would LOVE to!"  Then he asked, "Mom, is the baby still breech?"  I told him probably not, but he had lots of questions about what it means to be breech and when I told him it was better for a baby to be head down so the mom doesn't have to have surgery when the baby comes, he said, "I don't want you to need surgery."  I thought, "Awwww," until he continued with, "Because then you wouldn't be able to make us lunch!"  By the end of the conversation he had a firm grasp of the meanings of 'vertex' and 'breech' and I hope he didn't go inform the kindergarten all about it today.  I can just see the little five year olds chanting, 'Vertex!  Vertex!' as if it were a dirty word.

He was very well-behaved and appropriately excited to see the baby on the screen at the doctor's office.  On the way there he listed all the similarities between the ultrasound conduction gel and his toothpaste.  He decided the only differences were that his toothpaste has sparkles and tastes better.  Afterwards we went to get a Frosty.  I offered to let him get one of the new Frosty shakes or blended candy Frosties, but all he wanted was "a grown-up sized regular chocolate one."  So that's what we both had, and it was so nice to spend 20 minutes just the two of us having a treat.  He kept kicking the supports underneath the table and trying to convince me that 'a million flies were attacking underneath the table' and trying to fly away with it.

Another word about strangers and their need to comment on pregnancies:  Yesterday I took the younger two kids to lunch at Burger King.  I know - with Wendy's and BK under our belts, we only have Carl's Jr., Mickey D's, and Article Circle to hit to complete our fast food tour - but I had a reason!  (Our carpets had just been cleaned and the kitchen was full of chairs and barstools while we waited for the carpets to dry.)  I was standing by the counter waiting for our food order to be ready, and this very hairy-beardy Middle Eastern man approached me on his way to the fountain drinks.  His eyes widened as he noticed my pregnant belly, and with a simultaneously friendly but silly expression on his face, he looked me in the eye and said, "Congratulations!!!"  Um, thanks, I guess.

How clean is clean?

Today was house-cleaning day.  Every so often when I clean, I get to wondering if my normal is everyone else's normal.  

You know, like if people found out how often I disinfect the countertops at my house, would they gasp in horror?

I put two polls on the left side of my blog to figure out our collective average.  I totally realize that the number of people living in the house and other factors (like if you have a shoes-on or -off policy) will affect the results, but we're just looking for an idea here, folks.

Later, after all my loyal readers have faithfully answered the poll, I may post more details of my cleaning routine -- but only if I find out I don't have to be embarrassed about it.  :-)

The 'Nameless' Post

One of my idiosyncracies is that I think it is weird to call a baby by its name while it is still in utero.  We had the new baby's name chosen even before we were sure of the gender, but for some reason I still call her "the baby," "she," "her," and "it."  My children all refer to her by her name, but I just can't do it.  (In my defense, Nathan calls her "baby" too.)

Rebecca frequently asks, "Mom, is Rachel sleeping right now?"  (If she is still and not kicking my kids assume she is sleeping.)  Braden likes to give me one hug around my shoulders and one on my belly - "one for Mom and one for Rachel."  Cassidy begins many sentences with, "When Rachel is born..."

I'm fully committed to the name:  I have hung the letters on the wall in her room and I am making a Christmas stocking with her name on it.  But I still won't say it out loud.

Here is a photo of the other wall in the baby's room.  As you can see by the empty frames, it is awaiting some cute pictures from after she is born.  This is the conversation I had with my husband upon showing him the newly arranged room:  

Nathan:  "It looks like someone vomited purple in here."

Brenda:  "Oh, you be quiet.  I like it."

Nathan:  "I didn't say I didn't like it.  It's cute."

Gosh, I don't know why I didn't understand how much he likes it - I mean, the word vomit says it all...