Happy Friday

Okay, so the week has finally calmed down and I'm looking forward to this weekend. Jeeves is going out of town until at least Sunday night, and I will be hanging with my munches for the next few days. We are going to chill and probably spend some time at McDonald's so they can tear through the play place for a few hours. Yay for expending energy. Technically I'm off work Monday so it's a three day weekend. I'll be visiting some girlfriends, with the munches on saturday night, but probably not staying out until the ball drops.

In light of the recent irritation I have chronicled on this forum I've decided to lighten the mood today and share a few things that are good, namely...foods.

Yesterday morning I went with Mutti through the drive through at Jack in the Box and ordered a sandwich I had never had before. I was a grilled breakfast sandwich with cheese, eggs and ham on sourdough I think. Anyway it was heavenly. So if you are lucky enough to have a JITB near your house try one of these yummy things from the breakfast menu.

cheesy,hammy goodness, put it in your face.

Secondly, last night Jeeves and I went out on a date (yeah, I forgave him for being a schmuck and we had a good talk) to dinner and a movie. We saw the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, (which I really enjoyed in spite of the fact that I haven't read the book and it got a few bad reviews from people I know) and then went to Applebee's for dinner where I indulged in The Double Barrel Whiskey Sirloins Sizzling Entree. It was very, very good and I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys steak and mushrooms.

mmmmmmm, steak....

Anyway, it's a happy Friday and my back hasn't hurt in about three days, so I'm feeling a little better about the next 8-10 weeks. I have a mountain of laundry to do and fold tonight, but it's all good because I also have a slew of TIVOed TV to watch and munches who want to help with the laundry. Plus, I bought some new dryer sheets that make my whole house smell really nice, not just the clothes but the whole house smells like fresh clean laundry, it's lovely.

Here's some photos from last weekend, enjoy and Happy New Year!

New Preggo-Pillow, *Bliss*

These Lalaloopsy things are creepy.

Sunshine's Raggedy Ann Doll from Mutti

Sunshine and her new little boy baby doll.

Pumpkin's Puzzle Book

Princess Lillifee Book, from one of their favorite shows.

Jeeves' new Tailgating Scarf, it has pockets!

What it ain't

An Open Message To the Husbands of the World, from your Pregnant Wives
 
What I am
-Tired, dear god I'm tired. Imagine doing the hardest day of work you've ever done, every single day for 40 weeks and you'll have a vague idea of where I'm at energy wise right now. Everyday, even if i didn't do a thing aside from lay in bed and convert oxygen into carbon monoxide I'd be burning the same amount of calories as if I'd spent the day doing normal activities and jogged, for an hour. But I don't lay in bed, I get up, shower, pee, go to work, come home, take care of children, do laundry, cook dinner, do dishes, pick up toys, go grocery shopping, and then try to resist the urge to start moving furniture as nesting takes over my brain like the damn calypso music does to the corpse in weekend at Bernie's

-Moody, deal with it. It is hard enough to live inside a woman's head without dealing with the wildly fluctuating and completely unstoppable flow of hormonal warfare that is being waged between my body and the child's adrenal gland. The only thing I can come up with is that this awesome side effect comes from the days when women had to kill wild animals with their teeth to keep their children safe and the hormonal nonsense was needed to turn usually awesome cool ladies into snarling bestial contestants for gladiator-ship.
       Look, don't you think I realize I'm being terrible? Is this the person you married? Probably not. How about just for the next 8-10 weeks give me a wide berth, and cookies.

-Weepy, again deal with it. In preparation for the needy tiny screaming human I am about to forcefully and painfully bring forth into the world, my body is making everything even remotely cute/romantic/kind/sad/baby related or even sort of funny into a serious emotional moment for me. This is so when I haven't slept in a week and am trying to remember to feed both the child and myself, I am able to resist the urge to either crawl under a mountainous heap of dirty diapers (seriously how can one kid pee this much) and die, or have myself committed to the psych ward. And also, realize that if you are going to speak in harsh and angry tones at me, it's going to make me cry. You are not allowed to then become upset and try to explain your harshness while telling me that it's really my fault, because guess what? THAT JUST MAKES IT WORSE!!!

-Focused, on me. Yep, for the next little while it is going to be about me and what I need. I am not concerned about ignoring you, or helping you, or feeding you...because you are an adult. At this point I am mentally incapable of being emotionally responsible for anyone who is not living inside of my body. If I wasn't here would you allow yourself to starve, probably not. Please realize that I spend 98.7 percent of my day doing things for people WHO ARE NOT ME. Does the 5 year old thank me for ensuring she has clean underwear, no! Does the 3 year old thank me for putting her in time out so she does not become a burden on society, no!  Does my boss thank me for coming in to work every day, no!  Look, The only things I do solely for myself right now are shower, pee and eat nachos. If you are under the age of 16 and legitimately cannot do the thing you are asking of me I will consider helping you, if not suck it!

What I'm Not
-Comfortable, Look, there is not a moment that goes by that I feel even remotely like myself. I understand you want your happy nice wife back. Guess what, I miss her too. She had a nice ass and wanted to be around other people. She was fun and funny and active and could walk more than 300 feet without having her legs go numb because of the child she is growing and how it's pulling her spine out of whack. I want to sleep so much because when I'm sleeping I'm not thinking about how much this stinks. I've been hijacked by our little soon to be bundle of joy and at the end of the day, it's hard living inside this body, so give me a break.

-Angry, really I'm not. When you assume that my snarky, tired, attitude is a function of a bigger problem... you are, in effect, creating a bigger problem. I'm not angry with you. I don't hate you. If I did, we wouldn't be having this baby together. I will tell you if I am angry and I will not make you guess or try to figure out what is wrong. Give me some credit you boob! You didn't marry a sneaky vindictive snotty witch and I didn't morph into one because I become pregnant. I'm grumpy and that's not indicative of what I'm feeling about our marriage, it's because I'm a hormonal mess and I'm tired and I'm heading toward the most singularly painful experience of my life. The best thing you can do right now is avoid me when I'm grumpy if it causes you such problems, because I CANNOT CONTROL IT. May be you can, good for you, I can't and making me feel badly about it doesn't help the situation get better any faster.

Sincerely, Your Wife and mother of your child(ren)

Week 29: Selfish? Me? Yes?

It's week 29 and Squirt now weighs in at about 2.5 pounds, he's a mover and groover and the other day he kicked my phone off my stomach on to the floor. It was hilarious. His skeleton is hardening and if I wasn't getting enough calcium I'd start crumbling like the nose of the sphinx. His head continues to grow to make space for his future rocket scientist sized brain. This week his spleen is working to create the vital mix of components that make up the important mix of crap in his blood. There's a ten dollar word for it, but I'm not going to bore you with scientific mumbo-jumbo today...(An Aside: mmmmmmm, gumbo)

I failed the one hour glucose tolerance screening so this Saturday I'm packing up The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a hook and a ball of yarn to go sit in the lab for 3 and a half hours to ensure that I don't have gestational diabetes. I had to do this test with Sunshine and it turned out just fine but fasting for that long and then filling my stomach with the evil glucola drink makes me want to hurl. I'll end up pacing for a good part of it and rocking some as well to keep it down. Suck City! Although afterwards...bring on the nachos!

Btw, do you know what you get when you cross a tired pregnant girl with an expensive maternity pillow?
Bliss
and a marked decrease in sciatica discomfort; which is a welcome relief.  

As the time draws nearer I'm finding myself a little concerned about the amount of medical interventions that I see happening on the "Baby Story" shows that I watch as I'm getting ready for work each morning. I don't like IV's and I hated being stuck laboring in bed with Pumpkin. I don't want an episiotomy, let me tear if I need to, but don't slice me. I'm going to ask for them to monitor the baby via Doppler rather than the continuous fetal heart rate monitor. I'm feeling a little hippy about the whole thing and wondering if I'm even going to be able to get the epidural since I'm going to labor at home until I can't any more. It might turn out that I show up and have the kid ten minutes later. I only pushed for 20 minutes with Pumpkin and about 10 with Sunshine, this one might only need one big push. Wouldn't that be nice?...er terrifying?

Oh, and the title. Yeah I'm feeling a little irritated because I feel that at the one point in my life when I should be allowed to be a little selfish about when I rest, what I clean, How much I do, etc. I am instead being made to feel guilty because of the wants and needs of others in my home. 
To quote a hilarious video I saw the other day, "I'm making a fucking baby!!!"
Dammit!
Right now, it's about me!
Mmmmkay?

And to all a good night...especially me

Here's the rundown.

Friday night: Dinner at Mutti's and opening presents with Felix and his family. Mutti made thanksgiving style dinner and we all chowed epically and then we got down to opening gifts. The munches, and Livvie, each received a home made(Mutti sewn) Raggedy Ann doll for Christmas, and I got the coolest gift ever, a crock pot with a seal and two clamps to make transporting crock pot food super simple and spill free. I'm so excited to use this thing I want to make chili, like right now.

Saturday was craziness. I was up at 6:30, wrapping gifts and preparing for the day. Erin came to get me at 9 and after picking up donuts we had breakfast with the girls and opened secret Santa gifts before Erin and I both had to skip out and head to family things. I raced home, grabbed Jeeves and the munches and we drove to lunch with Jeeves family. We ate more food and opened mountains of gifts before packing it in and heading to my uncle's house and doing Christmas, appetizers and a helluva game of rob your neighbor/pass the trash, with my extended family on Mutti's side.By about 9:30 that night I was so tired that I felt like I might throw up and the munches had started self destructing. We scrapped late service plans and instead went home to get some much needed sleep.  

Sunday, we stayed home. We decided to have a relaxing Christmas day. Jeeves' father and brother came over, I made some easy breakfast foods and we stayed in our pj's all day. Mutti came by later in the evening and we reheated some leftover knishes and mashed potatoes for dinner and watched "How the Grinch stole Christmas" The munches loved it and have asked to watch it at least 47 times since then.

Jeeves gave me possibly the best gift I could have received this year, a snoogle maternity pillow and a set of super soft "Moody Mama" pajamas. Then he let me take a nap, I love that guy. For realz ladies, I have to agree with every review I've read of this pillow, it's worth the price and if you happen to be a side sleeper anyway, there is a very good chance that you will use it for the rest of your life.

Then I stayed home Monday, slept in on my new pillow and worked on finding places in my home for the things that had been brought in. Monday night we visited with my dad's side of the family, minus my dad and ate out at a really awesome Chinese place and got to visit with folks I don't see nearly enough.

It was a lovely weekend and I got to catch up on sleep I had been missing. I'll post the weekly update on the baby tomorrow. He's doing well and we are both loving the new pillow. I hope everyone else had a lovely holiday with no fighting and lots of cookies...well at least lots of cookies.

Oh, Ryan...

That's All, Merry Christmas All.

We will resume the regularly scheduled ninja style snarky programming next week.

Love you!!!

Candyland, and Pot-Lucky Death

Yesterday Mutti stayed home from work in the am to watch the Munches so Jeeves and I could attend a work Christmas lunch together. Mutti, Jeeves and I all work for the same organization and Jeeves and I are on the same team. So we ate, drank, played a trivia game and were generally merry and bright. It was a good time and it was a pot luck so I ate a ton of yummy goodies.

Then I picked up the munches at Mutti's house and when I got there, they were playing Candyland, and having a ball! It was like looking back into my childhood; my Mutti was in her pajamas sitting at the kitchen table, which we have had since I was 5, and playing Candyland *nostalgia*
I'll confess I teared up a bit, in the good, happy, mommy way of course. (which btw is way better than the psycho, hormonal, preggo way) It looks like it's time to break out don't spill the beans, cootie and candyland at our house. (turn taking games are important for development, so I'm thrilled that they enjoyed it as much as they did.)

So after a quick run to the goodwill (goodbye crap!) and a trip to the grocery store (ever tried to maneuver a car-cart through ShopNSave on "10 dollar off 50 dollar purchase Thursdays?" No? well, it's not easy) and then a cleanup of the crap that had taken up residence in the back of the van I got home around 4 PM.

At this point I had every intention of setting up camp in the kitchen and doing laundry, cleaning the kitchen and crocheting the last of the 9 head scarves a lady from work ordered. I ended up laying on the couch with the munches pitcher of lemonade on the floor next to me so I didn't have to get up except for the -numerous- trips to the bathroom (most of which were done at a near crawl) to empty the contents of my very, very angry stomach. The poor munches were so worried and every time I'd get up Pumpkin would come hold my hand so she could "help me walk". The girls ended up eating cereal, peanut butter crackers and pop tarts for dinner, because those were things Pumpkin could reach and open for them. I was in bed by 10, and slept until almost 9 this morning. I'm still not feeling right, but since I haven't gotten ill since last night I'm thinking it must have been something I ate versus an actual bug.

I did not have time for that, I'm so irritated that I'm behind now and I have so much to do. Work has been a joke this week, I feel like I've gotten nothing done, and it's going to bite me in the butt. I will probably not post much this weekend, but I'll have some photos and excitement for you all on Monday.

Week 27: Cauliflower? Really?

So, we are in week 27 and Squirt is about 2 pounds and about 14-15 inches long this week. His little "jewels" should have fully descended by now and his system can regulate his body temperature. I'm heading toward the third trimester, otherwise known as the days of lumbering, weepy, lunacy.

The baby website says that squirt is the size (weight?) of a head of cauliflower now, I've had two cauliflower headed baby dreams since reading that, more like nightmares really, because people starting breaking off pieces of his head and dipping them in ranch sauce. (um, wtf?)

I'm busy with work and crafting, so I don't have much else to say today. Here are some of the gifts I've made so far, but no identifiers because I have family that read the blog.

Pretty Ear Warmers.

Sunshine On A Cloudy Day

Sunshine: "blah-de-blah-de-blah-drinks-candy-blah-de-blah-de-drinks-candy-blah" (I honestly don't remember what she was saying just that it was a lot of words and she wanted lemonade and tootsie rolls.)

Me: "Sunshine, dearest, my patience is wearing thin"

Sunshine: "Your patients are waiting for things...Mommy your so funny, you just talked like a doctor....*giggle, giggle, snort*

Me: (rolling on the floor)"Bwahahahahahahahahaha"

She did not understand why I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe.

Sunshine has had a rough day today, she had a full out toddler melt down at the Bread Company (that's Panera for those of you not from the Saint Louis area)  We are blessed with an articulate, sweet, smart three year old girl who throws fits so infrequently that I seriously thought she was possessed when it happened today. It blew my mind and as I was about to freak out at her I heard one of those "God Whispers" it was all, "Ninja, she's only three, and she's tired, she really can't help herself right now, she just needs a hug." So we went out to the car, and she cried it out while I waited for her to be done.

Lord; Thank you for reminding me, that she needs understanding as much as I sometimes do, and thank you for helping me give it to her.

Pillows and Projects

I have to make this.




I'm sort of done with the pillows I have, many of them are flat and sad. So I'm going to buy some new pillows and turn the stuffing from the ones I have into this pregnancy savvy pillow that should make the next fourteen weeks a little more comfortable.

I have a coupon for Hobby Lobby so I'll be able to get the fabric to cover the pillow, a nice soft jersey knit, for under six bucks.This pillow costs fifty dollars at Wal-mart, but supplies to make one (batting and fabric) are less than 20, so maybe I'll make one for each of my two awesome friends who are beginning the baby making journey to help them be more comfy. (Brie and Aimes, don't read this or pretend to be surprised when I give you your awesome pillows.)

It's the weekend and I am baking with Mutti, crafting and hopefully getting way far ahead on my Christmas gift list. I came up with a super cute T-shirt idea to give to some family members so I'll probably be painting with the munches this weekend as well. I'm so glad it's Christmas time!