Welcome Back To Happy Acres

Well, there will be pictures of the birthday later, for those who care (approximately four of you) but for now there is this: my effing washing machine overflowed this morning, covering the laundry room floor, the kitchen floor, and an edge of the carpeted hallway within about three minutes of my turning it on. Please understand that the laundry room is LARGE. It's almost as big as the kitchen. It was a LOT of floor. So, there is now not a single clean towel in the house, since guess what was in the machine to begin with? A load of towels. Hope no one wants a shower anytime soon. Or, you know, CLEAN CLOTHES.

This happened to Jim while I was gone a few weeks ago, but it was all cleaned up by the time I got home, so I think I failed to appreciate the full aggravation of it. Well, we are even now, my dear. Also, I hope you can fix it again.

Because I really don't want a new washing machine for my birthday.

Our dryer has been nuts lately too- half the time it gets stuck halfway through the cycle, overheats, and will continue running forEVER unless you remember to go stop it. Luckily nothing's been shrunk too horribly yet, but we've wasted plenty of electricity and unnecessarily heated up the house many, many times. Yay for appliances.

Is This The... Very Best Bite For Baby?

I know plenty of women before me have already scoffingly discarded this quote- you know, the one from What To Expect When You're Expecting about that guilt-laden question you're supposed to ask yourself ever time you pick up your fork while gestating- but I can't help hearing it the last few weeks, sarcastically ringing in my ears, every time I pick up a salty burrito or take a bite of dessert. I know that in the first trimester the main thing is that you are getting enough fluid and enough calories, and the exact nutritional content of that intake is kind of secondary to whether or not you can even keep it down. So if I want to eat Cream of Wheat and Popsicles and scrambled eggs and cheese sticks every day, while drinking nothing but Vitamin Water (thanks for the suggestion, Jen!) that's okay, right? Or if I want to just sidle up directly to a salt lick and... Oh, no? Maybe draw the line somewhere?

Well, then just make me feel better and tell me about the crap you ate while pregnant, and all the leafy green vegetables (gag) that you, too, neglected shamefully.

The kids and I are taking off tomorrow for a water park/resort with my sister, our friend Beth, and my parents, so wish me luck. Or at least enough alertness not to sleep the whole weekend away, like I did the LAST time we were there when I was pregnant. Jim has to stay here and coach a very important revenge game Saturday (and also maintain the house's current spotless condition, so that when we arrive home on Sunday scant HOURS before Eli's birthday party, all we'll have to do is hide the laundry and get out the cake!)

Coming up next week: pictures from water park (no more bikini top for me!) pictures from Eli's second birthday, and Wednesday, that all important ultrasound report. Which I cannot stop thinking about no matter how many times I mentally slap myself out of it.

Since I Don't Have Twitter...

...I will use this venue to announce that I am watching The Fountain, and if Australia didn't ruin Hugh Jackman for me, this here masterpiece is gonna do him in forever.

Also I Totally Have Pregnant Face

I got tagged by Michelle and Hilary to roar about myself, inspired by Clueless But Hopeful's original roaring post. But dude, I cannot summon up any roaring power today. I feel weak and tired and like a kind of lousy mom today, so... We'll table that for a while! Instead I will complain.



This pregnancy so far, like Eli's, is leaving me both queasy and ravenously hungry, which is a sucky combination. I end up eating all morning long to squelch the hungry nausea, but then if I eat the wrong thing I get the Nausea nausea, so then I have to eat something that's Right to try to fix it. Right being salty. I am all about the salty right now. I ate buttered toast for breakfast (which was yuck) then had a frozen burrito for a SNACK, and am now eating a big pile of tater tots because I am still hungry/shaky/nauseous.


All of this food foraging and rejecting is taking up a big chunk of morning time, so I feel like I get nothing done until about noon, especially since I've given up my morning drug, er, coffee ('cause now it's also YUCK.) And then I'm ready for a nice nap by about two, so you can imagine all the fun and enriching activities the kids and I are doing.


Also, WATER is making me nauseous, but I'm really thirsty all the time (see: massive salt consumption.) So I guess I need some Gatorade or something?


I'm finding myself very displeased with my belly this time around. With Addy my stomach was pretty flat to start with, so all that poked out was, you know, BABY belly, around twelve weeks. With Eli I had a tiny little pouch leftover from Addy's pregnancy, so there was a bit of chub that started popping out before the actual uterus bump began to appear. THIS time, I have a fairly significant, stretch-marked fat pocket right over my uterus from Eli's pregnancy, when I gained (blergh blergh mumble) pounds. So all that early pregnancy bloat is just making this fat pouch pop RIGHT out, a nice big gut, and nothing at all approaching the cute baby bump I remember from my first pregnancy. There's nothing sweet about lovingly stroking what appears to be an inner tube of fat. Humph.


Jim's soccer team won their first game last night, and I was really excited, but then I just randomly started crying about stupid stuff that I couldn't even explain. We were talking and I kept sniffling but trying to keep The Crying at bay, and then I was all, "Oh crap, I think I have to CRY!" Kind of like when you warn someone you have to puke. Step back, folks, it's going to be a gusher.


All this and I still feel pretty uneasy that I'm "really" pregnant. Sure, my progesterone went up, but... the hcg hadn't doubled, and the progesterone is still technically low, just not quite as worryingly low as before. I'm just not going to feel safe that this is real until I see a heartbeat next Tuesday. So until then, I'll just feel kind of fat and sick and grumpy I guess!

PSA

Some info about a co-sleeping bassinet that's being recalled. (Because we don't have enough to worry about, obviously.)

Happy Dance

Well, yesterday was a great day. Not only did it rain a lot, FINALLY, but the doctor called me to let me know my progesterone has gone up to seventeen and a half from thirteen. Very relieving, as I was totally braced to hear that it was still in the low teens or even going down. She said to keep up with the supplements and, in her words, I should be "good to go" until the ultrasound in two weeks.

I'm definitely not winning any contests for high hormone levels or anything, but at least it doesn't seem like I'm in imminent danger of losing the pregnancy right now, so, whew. We are all feeling very happy for the moment. Um, except my stomach, which feels queasy the last few evenings and demands scrambled eggs with heavy salt made by Jim, best egg-scrambler in the world.

People Are Funny. And Awful.

Ugh. I walked into the path lab this morning in time to overhear about the saddest/white trashiest phone conversation ever. Basically, a (very large, bleached blond) woman in a tiny sundress and no bra was loudly discussing with her girlfriend how she was worried that the friend's boyfriend was hitting her kids. I was signing release forms at the desk when I heard from the seating area, "I'm just really worried about the kids. I think he's smacking them around. I mean, I know you smack their butts, hell I smack their butts, but (child's name) says that (boyfriend's name) is smacking him to the ground. The baby too! Yes, he called me to tell me. No, he didn't say anything about you, just (boyfriend's name.)" Followed by, "I know I've never liked him. But this isn't about me not liking him. I'm worried about your kids, girl! You can't think about how you feel about him, think about how you feel about your kids." Silence. Then, "No, I don't think he's being sneaky. I think he was telling the truth." Followed by a dismayed sigh. "Well you tell (child's name) that he can call me anytime."

What. In. The. World. The receptionist and I just stared at each other in horror. I just hope whoever was on the phone with that woman managed to prioritize her children's safety over her desire to have a man in her bed. At least the woman on the phone (smacking of butts aside, whatever THAT meant, exactly) seemed genuinely concerned about the kids, so hopefully she'll keep monitoring the situation.

ANYHOO, have mentioned that I miss coffee? Yet today? I spent an hour this morning at a nearby playground with my friend and her kids, lying on my back on the dirty ground, because I was so tired that just standing upright, keeping an eye on my babies, was too exhausting. Also, while we were there Jess totally reminded me of a playground story from a few months ago that I forgot to write about.

We were at the same playground together, earlier this summer, and Gabriel (Jess's son) and Addy were working to climb up one of the plastic slides. Another little boy was following behind them, trying to climb up as well, when his mom snatched him off the slide kind of vehemently and grabbed him by the hand. "If you can't play nice we have to go home, " she informed him. "But the other kids were climbing too!" he protested. "That doesn't make it right," she replied severely. As Jess and I cracked up in the background. Now we like to imitate her grim and judgemental tone whenever appropriate.



Her reaction just seemed a little... out of proportion, shall we say, to the severity of the offense. "That doesn't make it right" is what you say when a kid protests that he was only, say, cheating on a final because other kids were doing it. Not really a parental saying that I had previously associated with going the wrong way on a slide. No one was getting hurt, no one was being bullied, no one was currently trying to go down the slide and being forced to wait... I don't know, maybe we were letting our kids flagrantly disobey playground protocol. But as far as I'm concerned, climbing UP slides is way more fun than going down them. Also! Better exercise!

August. It's The January Of Summer.

Every year August kills me. Partly it's just that the blush is off the rose with regards to summer fun and summer wardrobes and most especially summer weather. Nearly always by this point in the year, our area is at some level or another of drought, with things going brown and wilty and no one but the most die-hard lawn enthusiasts really caring anymore about weeding or watering. (As I wasn't ever quite what you'd call an enthusiast even back in the lush and promising month of May, you can imagine the state of our yard now.) This year seems like the deadest and hottest August I can remember. As it always does. At least when it's dry as a bone like this you can skip mowing with very little consequence, except maybe a few weed patches here and there which sprout up determinedly. Skipping watering, though- that has some consequences. Like a highly unproductive vegetable garden, and yet another hanging basket which I've managed to kill. (Verdict: involuntary manslaughter by gross negligence.)

I did fill my lunchtime wrap with several Roma tomatoes Jim harvested yesterday, so I guess the garden wasn't a total wash. My eggplants were a disaster though, and the kohlrabi which sounded so crunchy and delicious back in the spring- and which were the only plants to really thrive- now sound gross and I have no idea what to do with them.

You know what else sounded gross today? The turkey that I heated up to put in my wrap earlier, like a dutiful little pregnant person, carefully avoiding listeriosis or whatever poison unheated lunch meat is supposed to contain. It sounded yummy when I pulled it from the fridge, but once I removed it from the microwave, steaming and pungent, my stomach immediately turned and I had to dump it in the dog's dish and then flee before I threw up.

Generally I'm not feeling all that nauseous yet, just a little weird in the mornings. Food just doesn't sound very GOOD first thing, but I don't feel like running to the bathroom, either. Also, I've had some kind of flu thing for the last week or so (it WAS the flu, like fever and body aches, not just the baby parasite) so it's hard to tell what's a pregnancy symptom and what's just lingering lethargy and yuckiness.

Luckily the kids are being relatively cooperative and low-maintenance lately. They're both really on a coloring streak, so I spend most of my day refreshing paper, crayon and raisin/goldfish/milk supplies, then sitting by to admire the dubiously representational drawings produced. Oh, and affirming Eli's choice of color. He knows most of his colors now, but still requires constant confirmation that yes, that crayon is ownj (orange) ownj ownj!!!

Oh, and I'm totally writing this boring and generally purposeless post to avoid rushing off to the pathology lab for another blood draw. I'm supposed to have my progesterone level tested again some time this week, and part of me desperately wants to find out if the hormone supplements are working or not, but another part of me just wants to go on enjoying the hopefulness of our current wait and see attitude. Wonder how long the ambivalent side of me will win out over the control freak side.

So Far So Good

Houston, we have a sac. Just ONE, too, and my apologies to all you twin wishers. But there IS a gestational sac, measuring appropriately for my dates, and there's even a little speck visible in there- not anything recognizable or with a visible heartbeat yet, but it's not empty, and that's all one could hope for at this point in the game. The doctor said my corpus luteum looked good too, which is relieving since that's what produces progesterone until the placenta takes over around ten weeks.

My actual hcg level wasn't low at all, either (2191 to 3110,) it just wasn't raising as quickly as they like to see. But for now the doctor said not to worry too much, all looks well, and we'll do another ultrasound September 2nd. So. For now we are trying to relax.

Thanks for all your good wishes!

Also Kinda Fitting: "Que Sera, Sera"

You know that song by Chicago, "If You Leave Me Now"? I've had this line from it running through my head all day: "Oooh, oh no, baby, please don't go."

My numbers aren't looking too good, guys. Progesterone is only thirteen, despite being on supplements since ovulation and doubling them once I got a positive test. After they got the result yesterday they doubled THAT, so I'm now on four hundred mils a day. Also, my hcg didn't double in forty eight hours like they look for in a healthy pregnancy. It did go up, but only about half as high as we wanted to see.

So. I have an appointment- and by appointment they had better mean "following a sonogram"- tomorrow afternoon to discuss stuff. Keep your fingers crossed for me, okay? At this point I don't care if there's FOUR kids in there, as long as there's something.

No Good Time Goes Unpunished

First off, my doctor's appointment went just fine. Didn't want you to think I wasn't posting because I was sad. They didn't do a sonogram since, duh, you'd be awfully lucky to see anything that early. But they did go over my history of miscarriage and the fact that there's a possibility of multiples this time (well, a HIGHER THAN AVERAGE possibility, I guess) and scheduled an ultrasound for three weeks from today. This seems like SUCH a long time to wait, but it's probably for the best... With Eli I had such early ultrasounds I think it took three times before we saw his heartbeat, which was kind of the opposite of reassuring.

Now then! On to the weekend recap. Thursday night (not actually the weekend, but still noteworthy) Jim, his brother and I met up with some friends in Columbus for the Silversun Pickups concert. While screamy concerts are not really my thing, especially when there is no alcohol to numb the noise a little, it was still pretty fun, except for the tragedy of walking all over town for a half hour in search of a place to eat quickly before the show, only to discover that our preferences, Chipotle and W.G. Grinders, had both closed at four. As, apparently, had EVERYTHING ELSE. That eight dollar personal pizza that I ended up eating out of a box at the concert never tasted so good, though, let me tell you.

Then, Friday, I went to Louisville with my youngest sister and two of our friends to meet up another two friends and their boyfriends. In a two bedroom apartment. And oh, it was fun. Even sleeping on the couch turned out to be surprisingly comfortable. The drive to and from Kentucky was murderous, as we got stuck in traffic both times, but Louisville itself seems very nice from what I saw of it. Of course, I usually saw it after dark: first Fourth Street, which is CRA-zy (at least from eleven to three in the morning,) and then the next night when we hit the city limits and visited Waverly Manor.

Yes. I made it through an hour and a half tour of a haunted tuberculosis sanatorium without peeing my pants or crying (out loud.) I am such a big girl. Sure, several of my friends and I had fingernail imprints on our arms for days, and sure, other members of the tour may have kept hissing at us to stop turning on our flashlight when we had been told not to, but still. I didn't run screaming from the building, nor did I stagger out the exit, shell shocked and catatonic. I even slept just fine afterwards. I'd call that a rousing success. I overcame my fears with my reasoning powers!

Example of Sarah's super-rational inner monologue throughout the tour: Okay, you don't believe in ghosts. Like, not at ALL. Of course all these idiots keep whispering that they "see something." They, unlike you, CAME here to be scared and see ghosts and so naturally they're going to. You know that those are just shadows from trees, flashlight beams, people's cell phones... Oh, nice, now she's making us turn all lights off, including phones. Well, still. Old creepy building with gashed out windows, still lots of shadows from that. These people are NOT actually seeing stuff. I wish they'd shut the heck up, though. I'm sure all those grisly stories she's telling us are made up. I'm sure there's not actually a murdered nurse prowling around here, or insane tb patients who are angry at the barbaric treatments they received years ago. Impossible. Take deep breaths and just re-AAH! What just touched my foot! Son of a...!) And so on.

So yeah. Good times. However, by the time we were driving back Sunday, I became aware that my throat was hurting more and more, and that all the body aches I felt were a little worse than one would expect from a four hour car ride and sleeping on a sofa. I had a fever by the time I got home, and even though I was so happy to see the kids and Jim, I have never been so desperate to collapse in my bed.

I didn't much rest yesterday, unfortunately, what with Eli's CHICKENPOX, which cropped up while I was gone. He actually doesn't seem that unhappy, but since I had a ton of pretty essential errands to get done yesterday, he was not too pleasant by the time we got back from: getting dog food, picking up a cell phone charger to replace the one I left in my friend's apartment, going to the grocery, and getting my blood drawn. That last one was the most fun for SURE. Ever tried to get two kids to hold still and not break medical equipment while you have seven vials of blood drawn? And then try to keep them from licking the bathroom floor or throwing the door open as you attempt to provide a sterile urine sample for the technician? Well, you should add it to your list. I've never felt so alive as I did in those moments!

Then there was a series of minor frustrations: drop detergent on the driveway and spill sticky goo all over the place, discover swarms of ants crawling in and out of the wall near the dog dish, moments later discover clouds of gnats inexplicably swarming all over the bathroom and the kitchen. Also the fact that both kids have been up in the middle of the night the two nights since I've been home, last night multiple times. And now Addy's running a fever, just as mine is going away. I think the universe is trying to tell me not to leave home again for a good long time.

Edit: Wow am I, er, not smart. I totally didn't know that chickenpox is an airborn virus. I can't believe I dragged Eli all over town yesterday. I mean, he has the mildest case imaginable, just a few spots on his face that anyone else would think was just a rash, so I guess I figured it was just no big deal? Plus he HAD the vaccine, so maybe I just thought that since he was mostly immune he was therefore unable to pass much of the virus on, too? I don't know. I just know that it never occured to me that I couldn't take him out in public. I feel super dumb now. Sorry, everyone in our town! We'll stay in for a while now!

Belly Shots... Already?

This progression seems slightly concerning, given that I am only four weeks pregnant today....


sometime mid June



August 3rd



August 5th



Yikes.

Jeopardy

Q: Very newly pregnant, very excited, very nervous.

A: Who is Sarah aka semidesperate housewife?

Geez, you guys, I wish I could be cool and keep these things a secret until three months in like you're supposed to, but I can barely restrain myself from grabbing random check out clerks and informing them of my condition. So I have to at least tell you all. I got a positive yesterday morning, which was only day 26, WAAAY earlier than I've ever gotten a positive before. And it was, like, actually positive, not just a super-faint line I have to squint at all day. Still, I took a digital test too to confirm. May I just highly recommend those? It is so much more reassuring to see the word "pregnant" right there than to trust one's own interpretation of pink or blue lines or check marks or plus signs or smiley faces or whattheheck ever.

I'm pretty sure my due date is April 15th, which is just one day later than what my due date was when I got pregnant last year. So that's kind of nice, I think. It feels a bit like closure.

I already have a doctor's appointment this Thursday. I have NOOO idea what they plan on doing, since it will be way too soon to see anything on an ultrasound, I'd think. I guess blood draws, of course, but they could have just sent me to the lab for that. I don't know. But I'm not complaining. It always feels more real once you've shown up at the doctor's office.

The Jet Setter Has Returned

So Wisconsin is an interesting place. I know, I kept saying I was going to Minnesota. We did fly IN to Minnesota and spent the first day walking around in downtown Minneapolis (under construction for the last ten years, apparently) and seeing the office where my sister works. But she actually lives in a tiny town in Wisconsin right over the Minnesota border.

This was pretty much the highlight of the Wisconsin tour:



That would be the bison farm gift shop. I was slightly disappointed by the visit overall, as I had been led to believe that bison were gentle, peaceful creature which I might even be able to pet and feed. Instead, there was a sign as soon as we arrived warning that PEOPLE HAVE BEEN GORED BY THE BISON PLS STAY FAR AWAY UNLESS YOU WANT TO DIE KTHANX. So. I did not get to experience a giant scratchy bison tongue licking a carrot out of my hand. But it was still fun. There's bison jerky! Bison marrow dog bones! Bison fur coats! Books on bison ranching! Decapitated bison heads the size of giant boulders!

There was also the bowling alley we went to the first night, where the woman who was singlehandedly running the bar, kitchen, and bowling lanes looked at me askance when I requested a veggie pizza. She directed me to the sign detailing pizza options, which read as follows:

Pepperoni
Sausage
Ham
Pepperoni and Sausage
Pepperoni and Ham
Sausage and Ham
Meat Lovers

I think they kind of like meat there. Also, their lanes must be rigged, because I think I bowled something like a sixty eight.

Minneapolis was really fun; we went to several little art galleries and a delicious Irish pub where I ate shepherd's pie and we all watched rugby. (Incidentally, the pub is apparently the number one seller of Jameson whisky in the world.) My mom and I also, of course, insisted on going to the very exotic and unusual Target, since the closest one to us is usually an hour and a half away. Lovely Target was where I found and gleefully purchased THIS:



That's The Baby Name Wizard, in case you can't tell. And let me tell you, taking turns reading and discussing various eccentric name choices is a surprisingly fun group activity while you're waiting for your hearty Irish meals to arrive.



Here's some pictures of my sister's new house and the people/pets/shoes that live with her. They are all of them very cute:











Thanks for all the good food and good times, guys. Not to mention all that free baby crack. Mmmm. Smell the goodness:



Self explanatory sister pose here. But we were both really excited by the lack of camera-induced double chin, so I thought I'd better be sure to post this one.

Alone Time

I love the days when I actually feel awake enough to peel myself out of bed before the kids are up. That hour or so of alone time lays before me, ripe with possibility. I waste too much of the time deciding what I should DO with those precious moments of privacy: Should I shower now? But I'm hoping to go to the gym later... Should I make myself a delicious breakfast and eat on the deck while reading? But then I couldn't hear the kids when they do wake up... Maybe I could pack for my trip this weekend! Oh, but all that banging of drawers will wake the kids up, thus negating all that decadent free time sprawling seductively before me here. Well, should I mop the floor? Probably, yes, this is the best use of my kid-free hour. But, meh, better to leave it til the end of the day. We'll just dirty it up today anyways if we go outside. I'll wash it right before I go to bed tonight so when I leave in the morning it'll be sparkly clean! (Because I am a freak who has to deep clean the house before I LEAVE it instead of when I return to it. Anyone know of a cure for this kind of illogic?)

I settle for painting my toenails, which may seem like an easy enough task to get done with kids around, but in fact is wrought with danger. They want to grab the bottle; they want me to paint their nails but then freak out upon the actual application and demand that the polish be removed at once! They hover over me watching and bump my arm. Then they DO grab the bottle and spill polish all over the table. ET CETERA.

Then I decide, in preparation for my trip, to clean up the bazillion pictures still stored in our digital camera, half of them downloaded, half not, so I can delete them all and start with a clean slate tomorrow!

And also so I can show you my hair, which is not all THAT different- about two inches shorter, thinned considerably, layers cleaned up. And! Now with side bang!



I'd like to state as a disclaimer that it will never look this way again, until maybe when I'm in my sister's wedding next year. When the stylist asked me if I wanted it straightened I felt wild and said, "Not straight. Maybe kind of how yours is?" Which was a few SOFT LOOSE curls. Instead I kind of look like I'm going to prom.

Also, GEEZ, could I could maybe have powdered away the GLARING SHINE off my face before photographing myself? Or tried to cover up the break outs which are popping up everywhere thanks to all those excess hormones coursing through my veins?

Little edit: Here it is this morning after being washed and blow dried. I think I like it better straight. However, I think I like my face with a little eye makeup, as seen above, better. (Also, did I once AGAIN forget to cover up that zit!?? Am possibly some kind of masochist.)

Not Just A Means To An End. But Maybe Not The End All, Be All, Either

I know a lot of you read Linda already, but if you haven't read her post today about birth and what the experience has come to mean in our culture, please go and read it now. The comment section, too, is fantastic. (Also, you may notice that someone named Sarah commented no less than THREE TIMES in said section...)

Basically, I just want to blow big kisses to Linda and say RIGHT ON. Also, to reiterate what one of her commenters said, and which I SO need to be reminded of sometimes: "We get pregnant to have a BABY, not a birth experience." After watching The Business of Being Born and and reading Dooce and ob-SESSING about both of my births, of in fact continuing to obsess about possible FUTURE births and how I could make them even more natural and perfect and empowering, I have definitely fallen into the trap of thinking that achieving one's ideal birth experience = perfect mom.

Now, I don't intend to imply that the birth experience wasn't meaningful to me or that it's not something I'll remember forever. Nor do I think it shouldn't matter to me, or that I won't hope for a beautiful, straightforward, natural birth the next time. Maybe even a water birth! I also still think lots of women get bullied by the medical system and that it definitely IS valid to do some research and know your options.

I just mean that I think I may have, in my borderline OCD way, turned my past births into something to agonize over and plan and analyze like I would a spreadsheet or a business presentation. I made it something at which I could succeed or fail, which shames me now. It was never meant to be that. If I had developed high blood pressure and been advised to get pitocin to hurry along the birth, or if the baby's heart rate had dipped for quite a while and the doctor had advised a c-section, I have to admit that I would be here, two and four years later, still wondering about whether I could have done something different- better, braver- to change the situation.

I also have to admit that one of the things that scares me the most about the possibility of twins is that I might be forced to have a c-section. My body would be housing and growing TWO WHOLE BABIES and yet, I'm afraid of feeling weak and unwomanly because I might not get to push my babies out the old fashioned way. That? Is just silly.

Here's the thing: you make the best decision you can with the information and the circumstances at hand. And hopefully, you don't look back. Except maybe at your baby's newborn pictures. They're the only details worth obsessing over.

Needed: Maintenance Tips

I felt weirdly ambitious this morning, and I had both the kids and myself dressed and outdoors by nine AM.

I KNOW.

I walked them around in their little wagon, first through our neighborhood and then to the school playground that's very close. The sun was blaring right in my eyes, but the kids seemed content, so I figured I should continue with the outing despite all the squinting wrinkles I was embedding in my face. On our way we passed the school's marching band practicing and wow, was Adelay fascinated by that. On our way back they were still at it, so I parked the wagon and we just sat and watched them do a routine. Then we picked some flowers (weeds) that were growing around the practice field before we headed back to the house.

On our way back I was noticing what a lovely little neighborhood we have, old, unassuming, but almost completely kept up and well tended. You can tell a lot of the people have lived there a long time, and really care about their homes. There are flowers and mulch and shrubbery and edging bricks and hanging baskets everywhere.

Everywhere except our house... Well, there ARE those things, but the flowers are few and far between, the mulch is from last year and is mostly blown away, and the shrubs were not the right type for the kind of sun we get in our front yard, and so they are clinging to life, but are not exactly lush or thriving. Anyone have any ideas for easy ways to tidy and spruce up one's yard without, um, much work? Or reassurance that when you have little kids, just keeping your house tidy and spruced up is work enough and I should let my yard rot away guilt free?

And speaking of rot, my nearly two year old son still has a pretty gross case of cradle cap. How is this possible? I mean, his hair gets washed at least every other day. And I do try to massage his scalp and not just suds up the hair. So what's the deal? Do I need to try to get rid of it?

Lastly, I am getting my hair cut tomorrow. I am waffling on an hourly basis between getting a kind of reverse bob like I had before, or just getting the layers trimmed up and thinned again. Basically it's whether the convenience of a ponytail wins out over having a hair that actually has a style. That's provided, of course, I were to style it, which certainly is a lot easier when it's short, but still doesn't happen every day.

Serenity Prayer

I'm going to deviate wildly from my usual format: questionably humorous anecdotes from my daily life and/or somewhat obsessive fretting about the state of my ovaries and uterus. So buckle up, 'cause we're jumping from talk about LH surges to talk about... God.

They're actually pretty closely linked in my own experience, though. Dealing with my particular fertility challenges has really caused me to question and grow in my faith lately. There's the obvious issues, such as "Why does God let crack whores get pregnant and then let noble virtuous ME experience difficulty?" and "Why would God allow both Jim and I to strongly desire more children when the process of conception is frustrating and complicated for us? Why couldn't He either make it easy or take away the desire?"

Then there are the deeper questions. "Is He really in control of all of this at all? Does He just pretty much set the world spinning and then stand back and watch? Are difficult circumstances sent to show us that maybe we were wrong about pursuing a certain path, or are they sent to strengthen our resolve, to show us just how much we do, in fact, want that thing?"

There's also the issue of not knowing how to pray. I used to pray, every time we'd try to get pregnant, "Please let this be the month. Please let it happen. Please let me not miscarry. Please give us a healthy child. And please let it be just one child at a time!" Now I only pray this: "Please give me grace to handle whatever happens. Please give us wisdom in each decision, and please give us peace about the outcome." Sometimes I have to pray it over and over again before the peace comes, the peace that what will be, will be, and there's nothing I can do to force God's hand or change His mind. What I desire more now is that God would change mine. I think that's probably what He cares more about, too.

It's not that I no longer believe in God's power, technically speaking, to intervene in even the smallest circumstances. It's just that I'm no longer sure I care to try to sway His power in the direction that seems best to me. I'm not sure that's the kind of praying Jesus meant when He said we should pray always. It seems kind of foolish and unnecessary to me, if I do in fact believe that God has my best interest at heart, to present Him daily with a litany of specific demands. It's making more sense to present Him with open hands, an open heart, and the request only that I can see and hear Him wherever He might be that day. That I could stay open hearted enough to receive His comfort or peace or guidance based on the circumstances I encounter that day.

Basically, I'm trying to let go of the need to control every little part of this process, right down to the part of me that was hoping if I just prayed hard enough, I could create the perfect pregnancy. God is not my fairy godmother. I can take all the drugs and vitamins at all the right times,; I can get sonograms and blood draws and pee on every kind of test the drugstore offers, I can pray the perfect prayers, but when it comes right down to it, I can't make a pregnancy happen, and I can't keep one from slipping away, either. I am not in control. I never was. I am ok with that.

Confusion In Fertility Land

Well, I appear to be having a bit of a freak out here, so maybe you can help me. According to the Almighty Pee Sticks, I have now been experiencing an LH surge (meaning impending or current ovulation) for almost four days. However, everything I've read online and heard from my doctor says that once you get a positive, you will ovulate within about 24-36 hours. After that, your egg is viable for about 12-24 hours before it deteriorates. At which point your lutenizing hormone should dissipate. So assuming you catch your surge right when it begins (which I think I probably did,) the longest you should keep getting full-on positive test results is two or three days.

I looked up my question at good old peeonastick.com, and she says that if your surge is showing up longer than three days, your body is probably trying to ovulate but is having trouble actually releasing the egg. WTH??

So have I not actually ovulated at all, then? Is the egg still trying to get out of the gate? Did I get the shot too soon or something and the eggs weren't ready after all?

Edit: After getting ANOTHER boldly positive test this morning, I finally called the doctor's answering service and got to talk to an OB. Not my OB, but still. Someone with some knowledge. He listened to my frustrated rant, but once he heard about the hcG shot I got on Tuesday, he was very reassuring. He said that I probably did ovulate just fine, and that the continued positive tests are just a result of the extra hormones from the injection PLUS the hormones my body produced on its own. He said I should disregard any further tests, and assume that the egg (s) got out of the gate just fine. I will start taking the progesterone supplements in a day or two as planned, to make sure there's enough of THAT hormone to allow a successful implantation, and then hopefully in two weeks I'll be posting about a different kind of positive test.

So I guess I'll just settle on down now.

Freshening Up

Look, I've had a makeover! Of the very free, generic, and user-friendly sort, of course, but hey. Now all I need is to work up the nerve for a makeover of my hair, which has gotten so out-of-control thick from all the prenatal vitamins and folate supplements and hormone cocktails and whatnot that every evening by 9PM I end up with a headache from the weight of my ponytail. Um, or maybe I just need to get my hair out of a ponytail and break out the blow dryer and flat iron that are rotting away under the sink.

Well. Like that's gonna happen when I'm busy dinking around on the computer!

Here's some random stuff about kids just to confirm that despite my hip new gray and lime green outfit, this is still just a bore you to tears mommy blog:

-If Addy is awake when I'm on the computer, she is inevitably attached in some way to my body. She is currently crouched behind me, ON the computer chair, crying because I told her that I really do need my arms right now and I can't hold her on my lap. Her usual spot is on my back with her arms wrapped around my neck like a little spider monkey. This could explain the incoherency of some of my posts- I am usually oxygen deprived while writing.

-Sometimes when I notice my hands, tan and kind of hardened from a lot of dish washing and kid wrangling, nails strong and square and short, performing mom tasks, I get a weird, de ja vu-y sense that I am watching my mom's hands do those things.

-Similarly, sometimes when I notice Eli's thighs, I realize that they are exactly my thighs, right down to the generous saddlebags and the little rolls of chub under his knees. Or at least, that's how my thighs used to look before I lifted weights. Now there's a firm, muscular part sandwiched between the layers of chub.

-Adelay is cracking me the heck up lately with all the inappropriately adult expressions that are coming out of her mouth. My WORD. Exhibit a: the other day I was trying to explain something to her and she interrupted me firmly with, "I really don't want to hear it right now!" Exhibit b: I was taking her to the bathroom yesterday and after she got settled on the toilet she announced with gusto, "I really have to take a PISS!"
Um, what? I know I let a few words slip here and there in front of her, but I'm pretty sure I've never said THAT. ("I really don't want to hear it right now" though- I've definitely said that.)

-I've noticed lately that on days when things go smoothly, I've usually started the morning out by complimenting Addy on some behavior of hers that has been cooperative or kind or generous. If I keep up the stream of praise and positivity, she is pretty much golden. It's amazing, actually. I remember reading this book once called "The Power of a Positive Mom" and thinking, "Yeah right, like it's that easy!" But maybe it kind of IS. Except of course that it's only easy if you yourself are capable of mustering up cheeriness and encouragement and positivity all the live-long day. It's scary really, to think that my moods and feelings have that much of a sway over the moods and feelings of my kids. So much power to use for good or evil! I'm not sure I want to contemplate that too long...

Hit Me With Your Best Shot

Yesterday was my mid-cycle ultrasound. Day 12, if you must know. (You: I don't remember saying that I must...) I had two good sized follicles on one ovary and another kind of small follicle on the other ovary. Which basically means three eggs were preparing to release; probably only two were viable. The two large ones looked about a day from being ready, and my uterine lining was perfect. HOWEVER. I have been doing the OPK's faithfully, and as of yesterday, I was still barely even getting a second line. (OPK's work like this: you test every morning, and as you get near ovulation, you'll see one dark line, which is the control strip that indicates the test is working, and then a second, fainter line. Each day the second line should get darker, and when it is finally as dark or darker than the control line, that means your lutenizing hormone, or LH, is surging, and you'll ovulate within about twenty four hours. Or in other words, it's time to get busy.)

So! The fact that I hadn't gotten a positive yet was bad, 'cause those eggs were ready. The doctor squinted thoughtfully at the screen and said, "I'm going to suggest that if you haven't gotten a positive OPK by tomorrow morning, you need to give yourself the hcG shot we ordered and stimulate ovulation. Otherwise you're risking triplets, because this third egg could be mature, too, by the time you ovulate on your own."

The nurse started to show me how to draw up the medicine, measure a proper distance from my navel and then pinch enough fat in my belly to stick in the needle. I nodded wordlessly, but I must have been looking queasy, because eventually she stopped and said, "Do you want to just come in tomorrow morning and have me do it?" What a quandary... Stab myself in the abdomen with a needle or trust someone else to do it? Still, given that I've never administered an injection, the odds seemed in her favor.

This morning I got a much darker test strip, but it still wasn't as dark as the control line, so not technically a positive. Off to the doctor I went, where the nurse brought me back and started rolling the medicine between her hand to mix it, while informing me cheerily that she "hasn't done a belly shot in a while!" Comforting. I tried to relax as she grabbed an inch of skin and slowly pushed the needle in, a tiny needle the same as they use to give insulin injections, but oh my gosh did that sucker burn. Maybe it was just the hormone burning and not the actual needle, maybe I was just still too tense, maybe I was icked out by the whole process, or maybe she just SUCKED at giving shots, but by the time she pulled the needle out my arms and legs felt like jelly.

It was worth it, however, when I got home later and took another OPK test. The test strip was even darker than the control line. Success! I am now as bona fide fertile as it gets. Thank you, modern medicine.

Random Reviews

Australia: Where to begin? Perhaps with the gratingly sweet aboriginal boy's endless narration, which started out kinda cute but in the end left me, for the first time ever, wanting to punch a kid in the FACE. Or maybe I'll talk about the abrupt jerking around from one genre to another, as though the director was possibly schizophrenic. I could touch on the endless racial stereotypes and cliches, the interminable riding and rounding up of horses, or the laborious and heavy handed attempt at educating us about Australian and WW history. Or maybe I'll just demand of you all: what was up with Nicole Kidman's FACE in that movie? I mean, I know she was pregnant, but does being pregnant make your lips get all wonky and your nose get bigger??

Conclusion: It takes a pretty bad movie to be unredeemed even by a shirtless Hugh Jackman, but Australia achieved it. Easily one of the weirdest and worst movies I've ever seen.

Fight Club: This may be on of the best movies I've ever seen. Coulda done without the whole soap making aspect (can't give away details without a spoiler, but those of you who've seen it are now thinking FAT FAT FAT OMG THE FAT) but overall it was seriously mind blowing. I know I'm possibly the last person under thirty in the world to watch this movie, but bear with me because I'm still processing it in my mind, reviewing all aspects of its sheer genius. It was just so startling and and so true. All over the place, but in a good way, an utterly riveting way. Some of the little comments resonated with me so deeply, I'm still hearing them in my mind hours later. I thought this movie would be all about, y'know, violence and men and how humans are all caged in and suburbia is repressing our animal instincts and we just need to get in touch with our physical side again... Stuff like that. And it is about that, but it's SO much more.

Conclusion: Don't be put off by the blood and gore. The violence isn't the goal or the point at all- there's a really an almost American Beauty quality to the message of this film. Make sure you watch it with the right people and in the right setting though. You can't just pop it in immediately following, say, a Bob the Builder marathon with your kids. The juxtaposition might actually break your brain.

Best Day Of Their Lives

So today I spent ALL morning trying to get work stuff done on my unthinkably, pound-your-head-on-the-desk slow computer, while also trying to keep the kids entertained by repeatedly reminding them, "As soon as Mommy finishes her work, we're going to go SWIMMING! At the WATER PARK!"

They were so good and so patient, and finally we got everybody into their swim suits and packed towels and extra clothes and sippee cups, and our old babysitter even came over to help me corral them, and I got to the bank to get cash and we all drove through McDonalds to get lunch for the kids since I was out of, like, EVERYTHING and hadn't gotten to the store yet, and then we took off for a neighboring town about twenty minutes away where the Glorious Mecca of Childhood Summer fun, aka the sprayground, is located and then we parked on the wrong side of the park and then we lathered everyone in sunscreen and then we had to walk about a quarter of a MILE to get to the entrance, Eli screaming all the way, and then....

They were closed.

I'm pretty sure the kiddee sundaes I bought at Bob Evans didn't quite counteract the crushing disappointment. MY crushing disappointment, I should clarify. I was seriously more bummed than the kids. I tried to persuade the owner to do me a solid and let us in, but no, she remained crisp and businesslike as my shoulders, weighed down with diaper bags and towels and babies, drooped in dismay.

Because, you know, there goes my gold medal for the Highest Number of Fun Outings Involving Sunscreen and Outfit Changes division of the Coolest Mom Olympics.

One Long Winded Post = Lots Of Short Posts. Right?

So it seems once a week is about my average for posting the last month or so. There goes my Fairly Adequate Blogger status. I haven't been commenting on many of your blogs either, I know, and I'm sorry but have no explanation other than laziness. Well, and some work stuff, actually. I've been doing some event planning for my family's coffeehouse, and it's actually, you know, TAKING UP SOME TIME and all. And I haven't even been doing it singlehandedly by any means. I have such new respect for my sister in law, who has been handling most of that crap PLUS her three kids PLUS a full time job for the last six years.

Anyhoo, I can't even promise the posting/commenting sitch is going to get better anytime soon, since in a few weeks I will be gone again, two weekends in a ROW, and both times SANS HUSBAND AND KIDS. I KNOW. Let that sink into your brains for a minute. The last weekend of this month my mom and I are flying to Minnesota to visit my younger sister and her fiance. I've only seen her house in pictures and I've never been to the Great White North, so I'm pretty excited. And I get to meet her soon to be stepson, Logan, who is practically EXACTLY Addy's age, which is awesome. I'm always bugging my sisters and brother in law to hurry up and have kids so mine will have more cousins, and now my sister will be providing, via marriage, a kid who is the perfect age! Way to pick 'em, Rach.

Then the weekend after THAT, myself, my little(er) sister and three of our friends are driving to Louisville to meet up with my best friend from high school, who moved to Kentucky a few months ago after she graduated from pharmacy school (YAY RENEE!) And did I mention it's my sister and one of the friend's twenty-first birthdays? So that will probably be a pretty fun trip, I'm thinking.

Um, unless I'm newly pregnant, in which case I'll be doing zero drinking and probably lots of napping and staring queasily at the toilet, playing the "Will I or won't I barf?" game. Or maybe not? That stuff usually doesn't kick in until around five or six weeks, right? Geez, I can't even REMEMBER. Biology is so kind (and SNEAKY) in the way it erases all the gross parts of reproduction from your memory.

Speaking of the getting pregnant biz, man, the Clomid is affecting me a lot less pleasantly this time than the last. I am one grumpy mama already. My patience level is about nil right now, and I feel just FRESH OUT of tolerance for things like playing Spiderman off the back of the couch and wiping boogers on the sofa pillows and throwing the dog food into the water dish for the KATRILLIONTH time in one day. That stuff, and then also the crying and screaming and gnashing of teeth about catastrophes like getting a spot of water on one's sleeve or being unable to find a certain bath toy or getting the wrong color lid with one's sippee cup. These aren't hypothetical examples.

Whining, demanding and overreacting are more frustrating for me by far than outright misbehavior, because it's so much harder to pinpoint the WRONG ACTION that I am upset about. It's easy (theoretically anyways) to explain to an adult that their attitude or tone of voice is incorrect and frustrating, but when I tell Adelay to "talk nicely" she just repeats in an even more shrill screech, "Get me some milk now PLEASE!" Then I say, "Talk more softly," and so she'll hiss the above sentence instead. How do I get her to take the NASTY out of her voice?!

Relatedly, how do I explain to her that while it may be acceptable for an almost two year old to happily yell "Mi'k!" from his high chair and, so long as he has not hurled his cup at the nearest parent, be rewarded with more milk, it is not acceptable for her to do so, especially when her tone of voice is decidedly less cheerful?

Also (and sort of apropos of nothing,) lately when Eli has been particularly ornery and it seems he's been IN time out more often than OUT, Jim has taken to warning him, with a completely straight face, about The Big Time Out In The Sky. I think it is the funniest thing evah.

Fun Fact Friday!

Because I haven't stolen Tessie's idea in awhile:

-My sister made us a Cocoa Cola Marshmallow Cake the other day. It's very good, but also very weird, and I can only eat it a few bites at a time. So basically there's a pile of chocolate-ish goo sitting in the fridge with random dents dug out of it. It looks like a science project at this point.

-Addy is very into playing baby dolls right now, but dude, she keeps trying to get me to nurse her babies. Which mainly thrills me, because I'm so happy that she knows babies drink breast milk and that there's nothing weird or gross about breasts and RANT RANT RANT AMERICA HAS OVERSEXUALIZED THE BREAST AND EVERYONE NEEDS TO GET OVER IT ALREADY AND WHIP 'EM OUT IN THE NAME OF INFANT HEALTH etc. BUT. I feel a little weird whipping it out for a plastic doll staring at me with creepy, sightless marble eyes. I'm working on convincing Addy that it's perfectly acceptable to just PRETEND to nurse the baby and still keep my shirt on. So now she's taken to nursing it herself. Whatevs.

-I'm supposed to use an LH detector this month with the Clomid, which I've never done before because I can pretty much tell when I'm ovulating due to the DEEP DEEP STABBING PAIN that lasts for two days afterwards. But the doctor said the pain usually means your peak ovulation time is already passed, so... Whoops. Does anyone have any recommendations on a brand of LH kit? And perhaps an explanation for how exactly one uses an LH kit? Pregnancy tests I have MUCHO experience with, but this other kind of pee stick, not so much.

-Portable DVD players are the best invention ever. We now have TWO. But hey, we don't have cable, so it all evens out.

-Our vegetable garden is really taking off, despite little to no care or attention from us after initial planting. I gave it a good watering today and am a little AFRAID about how much growth might occur tonight.

-I went to a tiny little local grocery store today just for a change of pace, and Eli chose that particular hour to throw the hugest public fit I've ever witnessed. I had to tear into a box of fruit snacks which I wasn't even planning to buy AND carry him the entire time to get him to be even REASONABLY quiet. Yikes. I was totally expecting evil stares, but the older ladies who ran the store were SO nice and sympathetic. They kept suggesting every ailment or illness known to man that could be causing his misery, and reassuring me that, "He just doesn't understand why he doesn't feel good! Kids don't mean to be bad!" This was so nice to hear, compared to the usual nasty stares you get, or occasional comments about DISCIPLINE.

-I am such a disappointment as a mom to Adelay. She is currently losing it because of my colossal fail at making her a fort with pillows and blankets, and also at my pathetic attempt to make HAIR, for the love of pete, for her LEGO doll. I am batting a thousand today, lemme tell ya.

-Just discovered that some persistent and sharp-toothed varmint had a hayday in the garbage bags piled in our garage last night. Most especially with a sealed container of EXPIRED MEAT. There were rubber gloves and Lysol involved in the clean up, let's just say that. But I was tough about it, just got right in there picking up nectarine pits and broken jars and picked-clean meat bones and all, until I got to the MAGGOTS squirming beneath one of the bags. OMG. OMG. OMG. I was pretty much dry heaving after that. And now we'll be having pizza (AND WINE AND SOME LOVELY LOVELY WINE) for dinner because there is no way I can stomach looking at raw meat after that little adventure. Not for quite some time, I think.

A Blog Post! About Actual Stuff!

Well, lookee here. I was clicking around the ole Internetz this morning and discovered that I apparently have, like, this blog thing. That I write in regularly. I suspect that this nugget of information slipped through a crack in my brain this last week or so, falling, unnoticed, into the piles of detritus and genuine filth that as of yesterday were still covering the majority of the floor space in our once-lovely Town and Country. The upholstery in that family vehicle has taken quite a hit in the name of family fun this summer, let me tell you.

I kid you not, I spent the bulk of two hours cleaning that van out. And I don't even mean really detailing it, like with Armor All and a squeegee and a can of wax. I mean, throwing armfuls of CRAP out the door, pell mell, until the yard was littered with broken plastic crowns and bent up board books and empty fry containers and lone flip flops and kiddee sized lawn chairs and granola bar wrappers and, strangest of all, random pieces of plastic fruit from our play food collection. Once all the junk was out, I could face the horror of the actual floor, which could barely be seen beneath its carpeting of sand, gravel bits, grass clippings, ground up Pop Tart dust, and of course, innumerable bits of petrified french fry.

I just about broke my vacuum cleaner on that mess, no lie. Or, my vacuum cleaner just about broke me. I probably looked like a cartoon character, wrestling around with it furiously in the driveway, the humidity sproinging my hair up into a crazy lady wig while I futzed around with extension cords and hissed menacingly at the various attachments I was slamming around.

But! That nightmare is behind me, and the van, while not showroom clean by any means, is at least free of the bulk of the dust and food particles previously covering every visible surface. The kids, however, are now covered in snot, as they have both come down with colds just in time for yet another road trip scheduled this Saturday, this time to Michigan for a big joint birthday party. So the car should be back to its usual condition, a veritable Little Shop of Horrors, within a few days.

In other news, Addy has an appointment with a group of eye specialists a few towns away next week because we found out right before we left for Canada that she has intermittent strabismus, sometimes referred to as lazy eye, though it's actually a different problem. Basically the muscles in left eye are weak and have trouble focusing, even though her actual vision in both eyes is perfect. We've noticed her squinting, closing or covering her left eye quite often, particularly when she's trying to focus or trying to look at something far away. And then lately we've begun to actually see her eye travel a bit when she's relaxed. Sometimes she'll blink and correct it, but often, if she's tired, she'll just let her left eye go unfocused. Once I had her in the doctor's office and he was doing the tests, you could really see the problem. She was almost incapable of focusing with that eye alone, and has obviously become used to just not using it when it begins to drift to the side, which of course has only exaggerated its previous weakness.

We're going to begin with treatments to exercise and strengthen her eye. How often and for how long remains to be seen. Many people with this problem end up in surgery, but the doctor here in town was optimistic that we caught it early enough that exercise alone will correct it. So here's hoping. And while you're hoping, maybe also hope that our insurance will decide to help us out a little!

And now I have to go get ready, because I have an ultrasound scheduled in two hours to check my ovaries! And if all seems well, its back on the Clomid I go. Somewhat problematically, I also have an appointment next week with my surgeon to see about having an old hernia repaired. It's one of those little hernias which they often patch with mesh, and the mesh is now weakening and causing pain and probably pulling at scar tissue or something. It's only moderately annoying right now, mainly when I exercise or lay on my stomach or something, but I don't want to let it get any worse and then get pregnant and just have to deal with it for another year.

Back when I had it fixed my doctor said that about one out of every ten hernias will need repaired later on, probably more than that for women who get pregnant after having one. So it's not a total shocker, but still annoying. I THINK I can get squeezed in to have it repaired before I ovulate though, so fret not: I'm not planning on trying to get knocked up and THEN going under anesthesia for an elective surgical procedure. And I'm definitely going to ask her if it's ok to have anesthesia-type drugs after a round of Clomid. If not, then oh well. I'll just deal with it until I CAN get it fixed, and at least I'll have the consult out of the way. But I wouldn't think it would be an issue, so long as I got it done before the actual getting pregnant part, right?

Edited to add: My ovaries are good to go. However, as of this morning, my glorious tan from the beach has turned into a horrible case of brown, molting skin on my forehead, nose and cheekbones. It is sex-AY. Hooray for irreparable sun damage!

Can't Talk! Playing!

You know, it always used to annoy me when bloggers would sort of go MIA during the summer, posting lightly here and there and even then, only with quick, quasi-funny stories or pictures of their kids, followed by the inevitable, "Sorry about infrequent posts- it's the SUMMER and we're so BUSY!"


(Busy preparing to give the Kiss of Life to a fallen comrade, apparently.)


Well. How are the mighty fallen. But I don't even feel too apologetic, because MAN, it's nice to be enjoying a summer during which I am not largely pregnant nor do I have a relatively young, nursing baby, as has been the case for the previous, oh, FOUR summers. Sure, there are still diapers to change, but at least no one is physically lodging under my ribcage, or essentially tied to my body every two or three hours due to the WONDER and BEAUTY of breastfeeding. So look out, world: you are pretty much my oyster!

And now we're off to pack because we're going back to the cottage this weekend- for the third time already since May! The Fourth of July is also my FIL's birthday, so we'll be celebrating our American Independence in Canada this year.

Another picture of sweet kids to lengthen post:

O. M. G. Also, I Quit

Fonzie threw up his entire breakfast today while we were eating lunch. He's a big dog, you know, so his meals are big too, which means that the enormous pile of regurgitated meal was... big.

Jim put Eli down for his nap after lunch. Ten minutes later, he went in to find that Eli had torn off his diaper- his FULL dirty diaper- and stepped in the contents, before running all over the room and his bedding. Man do I wish we had held off on that "moving him out of his crib" business another week or so.

While I was scrubbing the rug, wiping down the entire wood floor, sanitizing the tub wherein Eli had undergone Feces Removal and soaking the bedding, I heard a yell of alarm from the den, followed by the rapid pattering of Addy's feet as she announced, "Eli broke the computer!"

While he hadn't broken it, he did manage to climb onto the desk chair and rip several plastic letter covers off the keyboard of Jim's laptop.

Also, the other day Eli pooped in the bathtub. For like the fifth time.

These are the kind of days that I feel 100% glad, not even a tiny bit sorry, perhaps even downright CELEBRATORY, that I am not pregnant.

Out of Breath

This week, rapid fire:

-moving my old twin bed to our house from my parents' house
-setting up twin bed in Addy's room
-moving Eli's dresser INTO Addy's room and moving a bunch of toys OUT of her room
-coaxing Eli to sleep in the toddler bed in the same room as his sister
-coaxing the kids to play with their toys in the official play room (Eli's old room) rather than dragging every basket and car and ball back to the living room
-coffee with a friend I haven't seen in awhile
-drinks with another friend I haven't seen in awhile
-sadly little exercise

Today, rapid fire:
-two farmer's market visits
-grocery shopping
-sweeping off the front porch of an enormous mound of seed pods and dirt, throwing away a dead hanging basket and replacing it (and WATERING it so it doesn't meet its predecessor's fate)
-Jim giving Eli's hair a fade without letting me know about it first
-going to a cookout
-going to a concert at the coffeehouse
-going to a fireworks display

To My Baby Daddy

Happy Father's Day, Jim! Thanks for all the times you're patient when I am losing it, rational when I'm frantic, stern when I'm being a pushover, fun when I'm boring, and awake when I'm sleeping! I would never want to parent without you. Hope you had a great day!

Summer Lovin'

Wow, it's been a few days... That's what happens when you have ten loads of laundry to catch up on. TRUE EFFING STORY. And half of them were covered in sand. And then I ran out of dryer sheets halfway through. And then I swept up huge piles of sand. Repeatedly. And that was pretty much where I've been! In the laundry room.

Man, I'm loving summer, though, sandy laundry and all. I love how everything seems more fun. I love how you can just throw on sandals and go, no coats-hats-mittens routine slowly killing your desire to do anything but huddle around the TV together in quiet apathy. I love evenings spent sitting out on the deck or porch, talking and watching varying ages of kids run by in a blur of sweaty hair and Popsicle drips. I love weekend trips, and I love coming home from those trips knowing that soon enough there will be another. I love driving in the evening and watching the horizon slowly melting into tangerine and hot pink. I love that I seem to miraculously be getting a tan this year. I love that everyone wears less makeup, less perfume, less everything. I LOVE watermelon.

(Do not love: sweaty hair, sweaty backs, working out and then emerging from the gym, already sweaty, into a swamp of humidity outside. Do not love: applying sunscreen, reapplying sunscreen, the smell of bug spray, bugs period, mowing the lawn, listening to the dog pant pant pant all day long while ignoring his water dish like an idiot.)

Know what else I love? This summer, Jim's family and we are eating dinner together three times a week. Mondays I cook, Tuesdays his sister cooks, Thursdays his mom does. Then the kids run wild outside together until it's time to go home for bed, which is so awesome I can barely stand it. I get so excited on those nights, thinking, "Oh my gosh, after dinner the kids are COMPLETELY OCCUPIED. I can just sit here and talk to grown ups and they can go swing with the big kids and be free from nagging adults and OMG IT COULDN'T BE MORE PERFECT."





What are you loving about summer?

Oh The Places You'll Go! (Oh The Laundry You'll Do!)

We stuffed the van to absolute max capacity Thursday night, picked up one of our nephews, and headed northward for the Canada cottage once more, achieving roughly eight miles a gallon due to the staggering weight of three milk-filled children, two adults and a loaded cooler. Oh, and the shocking amount of STUFF I felt compelled to bring, terrified as I was of being stranded in the Canadian wilderness on a rainy day with nothing but a deck of cards and a can of bug spray to entertain three kids.

Note to self for next time: we do not need a beach AND bath towel for every person. Nor do we even need a change of clothes per person per day, as everyone apparently lived in their swim suits the whole time. However, we DO need to bring more chips next time. And SPRAYABLE sunscreen, because sweet Lord, it took about ten minutes and a day's worth of teeth-gritting to hold Eli still long enough to slather him in an appropriate SPF. Ah well, live and learn.



A great beach activity for those tending toward sunburn: bury your lower extremities in sand.





Eli was happy as the proverbial clam so long as he was left the heck alone with his pail and shovel. Try to feed him, change his diaper, prevent him from drowning or blistering in the sun, though, and prepare to face the WRATH OH YE GODS THE WRATH.



Mortifying story: I was feeling all brave and decided to break out a bikini top to go with the demure, mom-ish skirted bathing suit bottom originally purchased with an equally demure, mom-ish, belly covering top. Because hey! I am young! I have worked (kind of) hard to reclaim my figure from the ravages of pregnancy! I should show it off! And also, I have been drinking!
I boldly put it on the second morning we were there and strolled down to the beach where the kids were already shell hunting. I was totally happy, basking in the sun, feeling good, when my nephew inquired politely, "What happened to your stomach? You have scars all over your belly."
"My children wrecked my youthful beauty," I replied bitterly, before throwing myself into the sea.
Oh wait, no. Something more mature and rational, like, "When moms have babies in their bellies, their skin stretches and sometimes it leaves scars," accompanied by a reassuring smile. I'm sure that's how it went.
PS: Tanning does seem to fade those stretch marks a lot. Just fyi. Not that you should EVER tan though because it will give you cancer and it's bad bad BAD.



Greg with his Uncle Jimmy, working on a fantastic sandcastle. More of a sand fortress, really. I am always amazed by Jim's patience with projects like these. I am sure the kids found his enthusiasm for butterfly stone collecting, mudball racing and giant hole digging far more entertaining than PawPaw, Aunt Nancy, Grandma's and my enthusiasm for basking in the sun while reading our novels.


Addy did enjoy taking occasional breaks from all the lakeside fun to sit with Grandma and watch her read while liberally sprinkling sand into the bag of chips. Good times!

Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Okay, so everyone's familiar with PMS, right? You're a little cranky, a little moody, a little hungry, a little weepy maybe. You feel fat and your skin is yucky. Perhaps someone says something innocuous to you and you take it the wrong way and feel sad.

Now. Maximize that by about ten. You're so cranky that by about two PM every day you have to literally remove yourself from the same room as your toddler so that you're not yelling and slamming things in frustration. You're so hungry that you're wearing a hand mark on the refrigerator door with all your constant searching for another snack. You're so tired that you sit down on the couch for a minute and the next thing you know it's two hours later.

You're so moody and sensitive and strung out that a week ago, you were excited at the prospect of another baby, but this week, a few terse exchanges with your husband has you convinced that you couldn't possibly have another baby right now because it would be crazy and irresponsible to bring another child into such an obviously STRESSFUL and STRUGGLING marriage. And you're so FAT and your hair is so gross, you wouldn't blame him if he didn't love you anymore.

Plus, you know, you're obviously a terrible mother who shouldn't be allowed to reproduce again: look at your current kids, yelling and climbing the walls and kicking their feet angrily against the rungs of the time-out chair in which they've seemingly spent half the day... Someone's going to come take your children away from you if these kids let loose with one more blood curdling scream while the windows are open. But actually, if either of these kids lets loose with one more pee accident on the bathroom rug, you're going to be BEGGING someone to come take them away, so it's all right.

Later, you're at dinner with your family, and spend about an hour ruminating with your brother and sister in law about the futility of life, marriage, and motherhood, making bitter, depressing comments and staring broodingly into your wine glass. (Yes, that's right, this package deal of good humor, wit and comedy is available for dinner parties! Call early to ensure availability!)

And then, a few days later, you begin thinking, "This is weird. I'm SO hungry and SO tired. This can't just be PMS. I'm so EMOTIONAL!" Then your period is maybe, say, two whole days late and then you maybe, say, buy a three pack of pregnancy tests and start weepily trying to plan how you will tell people about this baby. While eating chocolate chip cookie dough pop tarts because you are so hungry again.

Um, and then you get home from the store and you don't actually need those tests after all. Because there's no little baby in your uterus. There's just a large CRAZY woman who's crawled under your skin for a few days uninvited. Whee!

Anyone know if there's such a thing as premenstrual psychosis?

Nice People Are Nice

Hmm. There must be a more eloquent way to say that. Really, though, that's the general concept I wish to convey.

Yesterday I was rushing around in the grocery, feeling a little harried and worn out from a busy weekend out of town, three hours in the car, lots of laundry and unpacking waiting for me, and nearly empty cupboards. So of course, I ran into about four different people I knew. Two of them were awkward, let's-avoid-eye-contact type of encounters (one girl was the sister of a guy I broke up with in high school, another was the girl who dated an ex of mine immediately after me.) The third was the mom of a friend of mine, so I thought at least THERE I might get a friendly exchange. I stopped to greet her pleasantly, but she didn't crack a smile, appearing tense and hurried. She threw a curt, "Hi there" over her shoulder and returned to perusing the cuts of beef.

I must have been feeling particularly sensitive or something, but I was getting really bothered by all the avoidance and bare-bones civility. I was pondering this, glumly loading my cart with macaroni and applesauce, when I heard a cheerful voice call out, "It IS you!" Behind me was an old friend of Jim's, his wife and their two boys. These are people we only see a few times a year at weddings and reunions, but they were SO friendly, and strolled down the aisle with me, catching up on summer plans, for about ten minutes.

I felt so much better after talking to them. Now, I know sometimes you truly are pressed for time and can't spare the few minutes to stop and have a conversation. But if you can, it sure beats waving across the store. Or NOT even waving.

~~~

When I got home, I checked the mailbox, and of course there was a teetering pile of insurance statements and medical bills. (Who knew blood draws could add up to over two hundred dollars? AFTER insurance?) I sat in the front seat of the van sifting through them, feeling my energy drain again as various large "amounts owed" started hovering weightily in my head. Then I got to a Hallmark envelope addressed to me. Is it my birthday already? Some thank you note for something I totally forgot about doing?

But no, it was just a handwritten note from an older woman at our church, telling me how nice the baby shower that I hosted recently was and that she knew throwing parties can be stressful as well as fun (I did have HELP, so I felt a little unworthy of the praise, but it was still bolstering.) She even added, "I couldn't help noticing that you've kept your girlish figure. Looking good!"

Say what you will about church ladies (and I have, believe me) but that last comment made me burst into tears momentarily. Maybe it was a bit of an overreaction, but hey, I was feeling pretty low. And then, here was this sweet woman, entirely without solicitation, not only complimenting my cheesecake but complimenting my waistline as well!

I will definitely be letting her know how much her note meant to me, but I will also try to keep my eyes open for someone to whom I can pass the favor along. And hey, the next time you have a fleeting nice thought about someone, be it their brownies or their newly toned arms or whatever, let me just suggest voicing that thought to them. Sometimes we think, "Oh, she knows she looks good!" or "Everyone's always complimenting her food; she doesn't need to hear it again."

But maybe she really, really does.

Sorry, Heather

This is a little mean, what I'm about to do right here, but I swear to you IT MUST BE DONE. I will go crazy the rest of the day if I don't ask- nay, DEMAND- that you click this link and then tell me honestly what you really think of the wallpaper in Heather Armstrong's new baby's nursery.

CLICK HERE NOW RIGHT NOW

Done? Now tell me, go ahead, just try to convince me that that design isn't basically the realization of several childhood NIGHTMARES I've had, come enormously to life on the walls of that helpless child's bedroom.

As a disclaimer, I'll freely admit it: I don't like or even get modern decor very often. For most rooms, I like things to have soft edges and luxurious fabrics and a little bit of fancy or whimsy or old fashioned to them. However I can say with a clear conscience that my terror re: above nursery has nothing to do with modern decor. It has to do with the concept of, in the semi-dark of a nursery illuminated only by the glow of the nightlight, A THOUSAND SHARP-BEAKED BIRDS diving to the ground to pluck out my eyes.

Or is it just me?

What's In A Name

This is SO random, and I cannot even remember what made me think of it (probably something like, "What should we name this hypothetical next baby or two?") but here is my Discussion Question of the day: If you could have named yourself, what would you choose? So, not that you're changing your name NOW, but that you would go back in time and change what it has been since your birth. Is there another name you think would fit better, or would go better with your last name, or is more unusual/less unusual than your current moniker?

I really like my name, generally, and I think it fits fine. (It's Sarah, for anyone who still thinks of me simply as Desperate.) I do sometimes wish it was less common, but it's not something that bothers me on a daily or even monthly basis. My middle name is Elizabeth, which I like a little better. Plus! So many nicknames to choose from.

However, there are a few other names I've always liked that I wouldn't mind trying on. Oh, or trying on Adelay! I love her name, but there are SO MANY pretty girls' names; it almost makes me want five girls, just to have the pleasure of coming up with five- ten if you count middle- lovely and unique girl names.

So, choices for my or my daughter's alternate names would be:

Brielle
Felicity
Annaliese
Aislinn
Calista
Brynn
Annika


How about you guys? Any one (or ten) name(s) you've always loved and wanted for yourself?