Kindy Graduation

So.

I know this is old news, but it took me a long time to get some decent pictures of Josh in his graduation suit to go with the THREE absolutely awful fairly decent pics I got from the actual night of graduation.

Seriously, the lighting in that little auditorium is horrid. It sucks the light from your flash and it gets lost in the black hole of the curtain behind everyone or something. NO ONE can get good pics in there. Well, unless you're the woman sitting in front of me on your iphone getting ridiculously lovely pictures like it's the easiest thing in the world.

So the evening started at around 3:30 pm. Well, for us anyway. First I had to get all the kids cleaned up from playing out in the dirt all day, so in the wash they went. The girls splashed around for a bit before I scrubbed Elayna, washed her hair, and pulled her out of the tub. Always an easy thing to do while kneeling in front of a deep tub with a big belly in front of you.

Then it was Emmy's turn. Except there are times with Emmy that try the soul make me want to scream make life... interesting. Now and then she becomes so absolutely paranoid that some water may get into her eyes that she refuses to have her hair washed (um, not that I give her a choice - but washing anyway DURING a meltdown is time consuming and exhausting. SOmething had to change). We've come up with a fairly equitable solution to this - she gets to have a shower. Now, mind you, she is SO paranoid that a drop of water will get into her eyes that a shower with a million tiny droplets all attacking her at once from above does NOT thrill her little soul. But IF I give her a washcloth to cover her face in time to prevent this I can sometimes prevent a meltdown. And then I wash her hair. Quickly, before the water soaks through the washcloth.

The first few times I did it I got so wet standing outside the tub with the curtain wide open I might as well have just undressed and jumped in with her. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have this big round thing on the front of me insisting on being in range of the shower no matter how hard I tried to find a creative way to stand so it wouldn't. I tried standing sideways like I do when I'm washing dishes at the kitchen sink, but really, the last thing anyone wants when a four year old is having a meltdown is a very pregnant lady standing next to a tub completely off balance: "Mommy, why did you fall on me in the shower and squish me until my arm broke?" Yeah. Not a good idea.

Now I have at least figured out how to draw up the shower curtain, tuck it into my clothes like a bib at a crawfish extravaganza and voila! bathe the kid without bathing myself. Sometimes. Unless it comes loose mid-wash.

Anyway, this was before I figured out how to do it without getting drenched, so by the time I was done with the girls I was pretty damp myself. A little on the front, and a lot under the arms. I needed a shower, too, but I'd already had one earlier that day, and time was getting short. Time to put on some more deodorant and make dinner.

Josh hopped in the shower while I desperately tried to think of something for dinner.

Dinner.

Dinner.

What to make for ... dinner.

You know how sometimes when you're pregnant you get... TOO hungry? And then NOTHING sounds good at all?

I was there.

I called Colby in a wild attempt to get him to understand the seriousness of the situation. I cried. I pleaded. I growled. I needed food. I needed it now, and I definitely needed to NOT cook it myself.

He brought home a pizza.

5 minutes before we needed to leave.

My darling little children, all dressed, hair done, shoes on, ready to go (did I mention DRESSED?) then had to be stripped down before the pizza noshing began.

Which task was left to me so DH could get cleaned up and dressed himself.

Ten seconds before walking out the door I realized.... I was STILL wearing my old ratty t-shirt and maternity jeans!!

Um... had I brushed my hair AT ALL that day?!

Oh. Dear. I changed quickly into something halfway decent, grabbed the brush and make up bag and ran out the door. Er. Waddled out the door. Rather slowly.

About 2 minutes before our arrival (slightly late, I might add) the realization my boy was graduating from kindergarten combined with heat, hormones, and stress and the water works began.

**SIGH**

We quickly found the rest of the family and sat down while Josh skipped on over to the rest of his classmates and got ready to start the ceremony. He marched up on stage and took his seat, along with 4 other graduating kinders and 1 graduating 8th grader.



I had no idea the rest of the school was going to be there.

Or that there would be an entire recital of all the songs the kids had learned, a piano recital, readings, individual singing, a game show.... etc., etc., etc.

It was an hour and a half before the actual, you know, GRADUATION part.

Okay, to be honest, the extra time to compose myself was a GOOD thing. Not being prepared to entertain a 3 year old and a 4 year old through that - not so good. Also not so good: not being QUITE at the end of a row and having a not really : barely potty trained kid, a little girl, and a pregnant woman using the bathroom every 10 minutes. Plus I kept getting up to TRY and get some pics of what was going on up there. I apologized profusely to the poor lady on the end after everything was done. She pretended not to hear me. I can't say that I blame her.

Anyway, the best part of the ceremony was when the Kindergarteners were featured in the singing of the Alphabet Song. They were already standing in front of the microphone at center stage after reciting their poem. The rest of the students filed in behind them and took their place. The music began. It was supposed to go like this: Whole school sings through once, only kindergarteners sing through second time, followed by whole school singing through together a third time.

How it went: Joshua finds himself standing DIRECTLY in front of mic. Joshua sings loudly. Joshua pretty much has Alphabet Song solo, drowning out singing nicely through all three times with his mouth 2 inches from the mic. By the second time through snickers went through the audience. By the third the not so furtive glances at his parents accompanied some hearty guffaws. Ah, well. He was doing his best, and for once - being HEARD. I couldn't help but giggle a bit myself as he belted it out.



Afterward we had cake, cookies, and punch at the reception. Then we were taken out to McDonald's for smoothies by the grandparents and great-grandparents of the graduate. After the smoothies, Josh was given an ice cream cone by the staff at McD's. Yeah. Yeah, it was a bit difficult to get them to sleep that night, even after an hour at the play place.

On the drive home I looked down at the suit jacket on my lap. There, pinned to his lapel, was my son's very first boutonniere. It was a perfect little white daisy, with a tiny bit of a fern behind it.

Oh. Oh dear. NO!!! NOT the HORMONES - AGAIN!!!

I couldn't help it. I burst into sobs and grasped around through the tears for the leftover McDonald's napkins. It was no use. There was no stopping the tide.

Next time my little boy wears a boutonniere, he'll be taking some girl he's sweet on to some sweetheart banquet, or worse yet, to his own wedding!

When the car stopped my little boy climbed up into my dwindling lap and hugged me tight. An interesting conversation ensued, and soon he reassured me he would NEVER want to leave home. Even when he's 30. I laughed between my tears, but he did not see the humor in it at all. Pretty soon he was crying too, wondering why I'd ever WANT him to leave home when he's 30.

Way to go, Momma, way to go.

My boy:


...is all boy:


and what a handsome one, too!


LOVE the black and whites!


Aww!!! He looks so... little. So sweet.


Every day I am thankful for a big brother like this for my soon to be three girls!

Third Trimester Top Ten

The Non-TMI Version of Top Ten Reasons to Enjoy the Third Trimester

Okay, so if you've ever been to the third trimester, or been married to a woman who has been to the third trimester, you know without a shadow of a doubt there could be a "Top 100" of TMI reasons to love the third trimester.

But this is a public blog, after all, and so I'll spare the innocent few the gory details.

I DO think those gory details would be a great addition to any high school sex ed. class though. It would be a great push for abstinenece, especially if you got a GROUP of seasoned mothers all sitting around telling the high school girls their birth stories of pushing out nine pound babies, showing their stretch marks or c-section scars, describing cracked nipples, and perhaps sharing a vivid memory or two of the joys of hemorrhoids.

Anyway, where was I?

Oh yes, top ten.

10. Exhaustion - Dude. I'm tired when I wake up, tired when I eat lunch, tired when I pass out on the chair after bribing the kids with a video to SIT STILL and BE QUIET for 15 minutes and tired when I go to bed. I kept telling God that I'd be SO happy to have another baby if I could just, you know, still feel good and ready to go and be energetic (you know, how you feel when your youngest is 2 1/2 and you remember what it's like to actually sleep through the night for several nights in a row) but He totally didn't listen to me. Apparently He looked down and said, "Ah, she'll be happy anyway." Which is true. But still.

9. Swollen Feet/Hands - Yes, I realize how sexy the sausage-toe look is these days, but then couple that with having NO shoes that fit anymore and resorting to flip flops in many colors and I REALLY have it going on. I hate having to take my ring off, though. So I bought this big ole' engagement ring of the century lookin' thing on sale at JCPenney's and try to wear that when I'm out. Except it catches on EVERYTHING. Maybe not a problem for normal people, but I'm apparently not that normal. See Reason #8:

8. Pocket-less Maternity Clothes - Look, I don't know who is designing these things, but they need to be shot. I've decided they're either designed by men (who have obviously never needed them or given a second thought to their ultimate FUNCTIONALITY) who think all pregnant women want to show off their extra cleavage, I dunno, maybe to distract all men from getting any farther than their chest so they don't notice the lack of a waist? OR, by women who are flat chested and will always be flat chested even when they're not QUITE flat chested when they're pregnant. There are actually some of us who are NOT flat chested and never, ever will be and so, being just fine with that fact but not having the need to flaunt it, I do not need to proclaim it to the world with low cut maternity tops. Please. make something that is long enough to cover the chest AND the belly but isn't a size 2X. Please. I don't need WIDER tops. I don't want a TENT. Sheesh. And what IS IT with the lack of pockets? And to those manufacturers who insist upon making FAKE pockets, that is a particularly sick joke, my friend. Especially to those of us who might, say, wear a fake ring to hide the fact they can't stuff their fat finger into their real ring and then get frustrated with the thing catching on everything so turn it AROUND...and then go to shove something into their FAKE pocket and end up shoving their money down the inside of their waistband while trying to find the REAL pocket and just end up with a long, red, nasty scratch down the side of their poor belly. And spare change skittering across the floor after exiting the bottom of the shorts. In the middle of a store.

7. The Return of Morning Sickness - There's just no way to describe how fun it is to keep waking up to pee in the middle of the night and inevitably stumble back to bed feeling the need to lean over the side of the bed in case you actually do puke,

6. Constant Nasal Congestion - This is one of my very first signs of pregnancy, and it sticks around the whole way through. I'm constantly sniffling. And my husband has learned there is more than one reason for him to turn on a fan at night. Not only does it keep me from overheating (unless it's 90+ degrees outside in which case NOTHING prevents overheating), it also drowns the sound of my BREATHING just a teeny bit. But not all the way. And then there's the occasional snoring to contend with. Not that I snore. Really. Yeah, so now and then when the congestion and exhaustion are running really high and in cahoots with each other, then my husband will make a comment something like this: "Wow, I can tell you're really tired today because your lip is REALLY drooping!!" ... It usually happens when I'm trying NOT to breathe through my nose because I'm really stuffy and so I am breathing through my mouth, while attempting to do it lady-like in some way, shape, or form which means I'm holding my mouth mostly closed and only just open enough to get in enough air to not pass out, and by the end of the day I can actually FEEL the bottom lip starting to... droop. And the second my husband points it out I make it all SO much better by bursting into tears and having a good cry. Followed by more intense congestion and a splitting headache.

5. The Sneeze Factor - Uh, oops. How'd this one get in here? This is definitely a TMI one. If you've ever been pregnant, you know I don't need to elaborate here.

4. The Hip Waddle - OUCH! - It's the catch-22 of symptoms. In some ways you're glad your hips and all the pelvic joints that aren't really "joints" can just loosen up like that so long before labor begins so you can push out that 9 lb. baby without breaking, but really, who wants their pelvic joints to be so loose they feel like they're coming apart for 10 weeks?!

3. Just Call Me "Clumsy Butterfingers" - Here's what you do when you drop something (or your other children do) on the floor. First hike up the maternity pants that will fall down if you don't, spread your knees to make room for the belly, take in a deep breath and hold it 'cause you won't be able to breathe again until in the fully upright position, and reach down to grab it, exhaling sharply 'cause you thought you did, but you really don't, have enough room for the air AND the baby AND all your organs in there while scrunched over in that position. But here's the catch: I think it must be Murphy's Law or something. Or maybe we should call it Murphy's PREGNANT LAW: Once the object is retrieved from the depths of the floor, it will INEVITABLY be dropped again. Possibly 3 or 4 times before you finally manage to get a tight grip on it. Invest in one of those long-handled grabber thingies you see on infomercials. Or just do what I do and wait until you can hardly see the floor and then go around on hands and knees with a basket. Or wait till your husband steps on a lego. That works, too.

2. Hello, Psycho! - There are NO mood swings like Pregnant Mood Swings. Although.... I might recant that when I'm somewhere around the age of 50. We'll see.

And - drumroll please - The NUMBER ONE reason to enjoy the third trimester:

1. The Nose Spread - The Nose Spread? You ask. Yes. The Nose Spread. When I wake up one morning and look in the mirror to find that my nose has doubled in width and is spreading across my face. Oh yes, I assure you, it does happen! And it happens to go very nicely with the sausage toes and the lip droop mentioned earlier. I used to think it was all in my head, that surely my nose couldn't really be doing such things to me, that it was an optical illusion and once again my mirror was to blame (mirrors are to blame for a LOT of things, you see) but then I saw this one picture of Tiffany-Amber Theissen and I KNOW her nose didn't use to be that... big. I just really love it when celebrities are so... REAL... when they're pregnant. 'Cause really, not all of us can be Nicole Kidman.

Camp Meeting

So. I went to camp meeting this year.

I'm still trying to figure out just how my best friend talked me into this, but she did. I think it had something to do with talking me up on the cabins they have sprinkled throughout the campsite and how she'd bring her little a/c unit for the cabin window, and bring her little dorm fridge and how we'd sleep every night on real beds in absolute comfort.

At least that was the plan.

Except that you don't get into camp meeting on a wing and a prayer these days. Now it's all done with a random lottery via computer program or something like that. So we filled out our application: Pick #1: cabin with mattresses (some cabins you actually have to BYO mattresses! By the end of the week we were totally regretting not putting that as our second choice). Pick #2: an RV space with electricity.

Well, we thought, we'll get the cabin, look at all the kids we're bringing! They'll take pity on us and put us up in a cabin. And if not - we'll borrow a camper from someone and STILL spend the week in relative comfort. As long as there's electricity there will be an A/C unit!

Ah, yes, optimism. I'm not usually that optimistic and now I remember why.

We spent the week in a tent.

Our first night went something like this:

1. Lay down on air mattress in the tent with 3 year old. Try to get 3 year old to sleep. Give up around 9 and leave her there with Auntie while I try to settle the other two kids into their cots in Grandma's camper.

2. Lay down on couch in camper and try not to fall asleep while 4 and 6 year olds laugh, giggle, jump around, cry, beg to sleep with me in tent, fight, etc, until 10 when I give up and hand them over to grandparents to deal with. They are far too excited to sleep and I am already too tired to try and read them to sleep. I can barely keep my eyes open!

3. Lay down on air mattress in sweltering hot tent and fall promptly to sleep.

3. Wake up at midnight with my rear end on the ground, thanks to slowly deflating air mattress. Stuff extra pillow under hips.

4. Wake up at 1 am with back on the ground, hips still on the pillow, and head still on the pillow. Attempt to get up. Finally successfull after several VERY awkward tries and several bouts of giggles from watching air mattress flop my poor sleeping 3 year old around at my every movement.

5. Grab pillow, blanket, and phone and head over to the other tent where there is a twin size air mattress calling my name. Leave 3 year old with Auntie.

6. Flop on air mattress and immediately feel a bug crawling over arm. Hop (ha ha ha, as much as a 7 month pregnant woman CAN hop) up, flip on phone to find an earwig in bed. Flash phone around rest of the tent to find WAY more bugs than necessary everywhere. That's what I get for letting the kids play in there during the day, I guess.

7. Flop back on air mattress and go to sleep anyway.

8. Wake up to phone ringing. Find phone. It is Auntie, in the other tent, calling to say that 4 year old in the camper is awake and needing her mommy. Retrieve 4 year old, bring her in tent with me, and go back to sleep.

9. Wake up at 6:30 thanks to bright-eyed and bushy-tailed 4 year old zipped into same tent as me bouncing off the walls.

10. Somewhere at unknown intervals, make 3 trips down the hill to the porta-potty.

And that was just the first night.

Sometime the next day I tried to log into my facebook account through Raini's phone. You know, since it has this handy-dandy little keyboard to use instead of the tedious predictive text stuff I have to do on my phone. I got this error message that said something about "we don't recognize this location, therefore you must go log into your account from your home computer in order to restore your account" or some such nonsense.

So I tried logging into fb with MY phone. Surely it will recognize that I've done it from that specific location a million times, right?! No. Since I'd already tried from an unknown location I couldn't go back and log in from my phone until I'd gone home to my HOME COMPUTER. Um. HELLO?! If I were AT home, I'd be logging in FROM home, now wouldn't I?

And then I lost my phone charger anyway. It is lost somewhere in the clutches of the camp meeting vortex where all the lost sunglasses, ID bracelets, and flip flops go.

Ah well. It's not like I really needed to use my phone much or be on fb much at camp meeting anyway, though I was tempted several times to text Raini in the same tent as me in an attempt to communicate while still being quiet enough to keep the little ones asleep. Mostly we just waved at each other over the babies and went back to reading until it was too dark to see.

Our other camp meeting adventures included having the 3 year old lock herself into the porta-potty, which she is now completely terrified by, a big-girl-panties-gone-wrong incident at a birthday gathering that had me leaving the festivities and heading straight for the bath house for a quick shower for both of us, a visit from a little snapping turtle, and a good, soaking rainstorm that really made those middle of the night trips to the porta-potty extra fun.



We did have a lot of fun, though, too. We had banana ice-cream cones nearly every day (which are just simply frozen bananas shoved through this cool machine that turns them into soft-serve and were amazingly good!), made lots of new friends, enjoyed the classes, rode the tram as much as possible, and caught up with old friends we hadn't seen in years and years.

And in between, we walked. We walked a lot. Enough for me to have lost a pound since my last appointment 3 weeks ago.

I think we plan to go back next year. Even if we have to do the whole tent thing again! I'm still hoping for a cabin, though, even if I have to tie 3 mattresses on top of my car to do it.

Baby Update

Last Thursday I went to see the perinatologist for the fetal echocardiogram.

I was kind of a wreck when I left. I hadn't slept much the night before, was worried about the outcome of the testing, and felt guilty for leaving the kids ALL DAY with Grandma and Grandpa in their camper when they were busily trying to prepare to go to campmeeting early the next morning.

But the drive down did a lot to relax me and I enjoyed being able to drive with the windows down (without hearing "Mommy, I COLD-Y!), listening to music (loudly) that had nothing to do with any sort of Wee-Sing-type theme or Your Story Hour story I've heard hundreds of times (Mom, can we listen to "Little Bad Legs"....again???).

By the time I got down there I was excited to get a peek at the baby again and felt more able to handle bad news if that's the direction it was going to go.

First the u/s tech did a routine growth ultrasound and did all of the same measurements they did at the 20 week ultrasound. She really didn't get very good pics to print, though. But now and then I got a glimpse of a little face, with rounded little cheeks that just need kissing.

The best of the pics

She tried repeatedly to get another look at the gender, but baby was VERY modest and kept her legs closed tightly the whole time. I'm still betting on a girl, but there have been an awful lot of stories lately of girls turning into boys at the last minute. Just heard another one this week at campmeeting. Well, it's probably a good thing my mom is bringing along a few boy things "just in case".

The growth ultrasound showed that baby was 3lbs 3oz. and measuring 31 weeks (a week ahead of where I was at the time). That's not surprising. My babies tend to be above average size at birth and this one will likely NOT be a 6 pounder. Did you know the average baby is 6.5 - 7.5 lbs? So yeah, a baby measuring ahead for me doesn't mean she'll come earlier than we thought, just that she'll be bigger than average.

Anyway, after the initial ultrasound, then the cardiologist came in and we proceeded with the echo. By that time baby was sick and tired of being poked and prodded so she turned and twisted this way and that to get away from it all. So... that meant I got to be the one compensating by turning this way and that on the table. Toward the tech, away from the tech, back to center, again and again. Felt like a fish in the bottom of a boat. Except I got to make an attempt at modesty while flopping back and forth keeping my shirt up around my ribs and my pants down around my hips.

Her heart looked great. We got a GREAT view of her aorta all the way from the top of her heart to her arch to her bladder (where it splits). It looked like a dark candy cane on the screen and it was the most beautiful sight!

After the echo, I met with the perinatologist to discuss the rest of the growth ultrasound and any further concerns there might be. He pretty much walked in and said: "Heart looks normal, kidneys, stomach, brain all look normal, fluid levels are normal, baby looks great! Any questions?"

And that was it. Our baby will be seen by our pediatrician (who knows all the history and stuff) after she's born. Coarctations can occur after birth, or be missed easily until the child begins to grow (while a small portion of the aorta fails to grow) causing problems the farther along the disparity in growth is allowed to go untreated. As long as our kids are watched for this, knowing the predisposition genetically to it, that's the best we can do.

I feel better. Every time I meet with the pediatric cardiologists I feel like I am learning new things, getting better acquainted with this particular CHD and the more knowledge I have, the better equiped I am to deal with it and handle its particular challenges.

I was met at home by a little boy with a board and a softball who just wanted very badly to have a little practice at bat. So before I even made it to the door I was out tossing the ball for him while he tried desperately to swing the board at it. I finally found a lighter piece of trim he could use and that went much better!

Just outside the door (when I finally made it there) I found a huge bouquet of bracken ferns and tree branches. On their nature walk with Grandma, my son had gathered up all of them for me and Grandma had tied it all together with twine. It sat on the doorstep and so I scooped it up and brought it inside. All night it sat on the kitchen table and filled up the house with the most delicious woodsy smell. I LOVED it. It crept into my sleep and colored my dreams with pictures of my childhood and the Sabbath walks we used to take down to the river.

Summer Prego

-Disclaimer-
I realize it's now like 65 and raining, but this was written over a week ago when it was miserably hot but I didn't have internet so I couldn't post it. I have a couple more to post eventually, too!




Welcome to the Third Trimester.

Oh. And say "Hello!" to Summer.

It has been in the 80's and 90's for the past week.

Did I mention I'm PREGNANT?

I... am not.. a hot weather type of person. Even when I'm not knocked up.

I'm allergic to humidity. No, really. I'm sweating just thinking about it. It makes me do things like lose my sense of modesty and flop around aimlessly on the couch while my children make messes around me.

One time I was on this road trip with my soon-to-be in-laws and discovered that upstate New York really does get hot and humid during the month of August. Apparently when I was packing for this trip I was thinking, "New England! Cool, crisp, clear air!". Right? Wrong. Hey. I'd never been there before.

The only places I'd encountered humidity previously was in the mosquito infested backyards of the lower midwest and the jungles of Brazil.

I mean, I grew up in Washington, for Pete's sake. Mountains, coastal air, temperate climate, more mountains. In Washington, the only way we experience extra moisture in the air is in the form of RAIN.

I like rain. Heat, humidity, sunshine... these things just don't appeal to my melancholy side, I guess. And living in Washington, you just have to have a melancholy side that likes to stand out in the rain and let it pour down over you while you ponder lost dreams and such.

Or something like that. Grass is always greener, right?

Anyway, back to that road trip, next thing I knew I was perched in the back window of an old Suburban clawing into my suitcase for shorts and a t-shirt and if someone hadn't yelled, "Pull Over!" (who was that, anyway?) I am pretty certain I would have attempted a change of clothing on the go kinda like what I used to do back in the day while driving my car.... but we won't get into that.

So, yeah. Not a fan of humidity. I've been trying to get God to put an end to that particular curse to mankind, but I don't think I'm getting through here.

Seriously, if I could just park myself in front of the little window unit air conditioner wearing nothing but my skivies in the chaise lounger with a mocha frappe, a pint of Ben & Jerry's and a laptop I'd be happy.

And that dream is about as far from feasable reality as winning the lottery when I never play it.

So instead I often find myself plopped in bed at the end of the day, propped up on pillows with my big ole' belly sticking up in front of me, eating ice cream, with a cold washcloth tossed across each swollen foot with little sausage toes poking up at me and a tiny little fan miserably attempting to make a difference in our hot bedroom.

Because for some reason, our bedroom is the hottest room in the house. It doesn't matter WHAT I do trying to keep the room from getting all hot and nasty during the day, it refuses to cooperate.

I'd insist on having the little air conditioner in there to make sleeping a little more bearable, but it's really not a good idea.

You see, we live in a REALLY old farmhouse. Our bedroom used to be the front porch. Then someone threw up some walls and called it a room. Oh. And when they added electricity at some point, they remembered the old front porch and added ONE outlet.

We already have it totally overloaded.

It runs our TV, VCR, my tiny little miserable fan, and goes around the corner with a power strip to run the computer, printer, and monitor in the office.

Yep, pretty sure trying to add the AC would be a quick way to blow a fuse.

Or start a fire.

I COULD try and rearrange a few rooms to make it work out, but that would mean an expenditure of energy that will just simply HAVE to wait until it cools off first. But then I'll be cooled off and probably won't remember why it was so important to rearrange half the household. And thus begins a very vicious cycle.

Ah, well. I keep telling myself that I need to take it all "One day at a time". But then I remember that I will still be pregnant tomorrow.

And joy of all joys, as long as I'm still pregnant, (and growing bigger by the day, I might add) it will still be summer.

Yay Me. I only have 12 weeks or so more of this to endure. Time to go attempt to get some sleep in between bathroom trips, baby kicking, insomnia, fighting with the pillows to get comfy, and an unbearably HOT bedroom.