My week thus far

With fewer children around, it seems like the house is a lot less interesting.  Not that Callie and Delaney aren't a barrel of laughs, but somehow, its hard to come up with interesting things to blog about.  So, here is a bit of what we have been doing.....

We went to the park.  Its really been much to hot to be outside at all, but at 9:30 in the morning, with a bit of a breeze, it wasn't too bad.  That's a total lie.  I was sweaty and hot, but the girls had a blast. 

Delaney declared herself to be a monster, and the other kids ran away, but she didn't chase them.  I don't think she understood her monster responsibilities.

Ah, yes.  This is my living room floor.  I cannot even count the number of times the girls or I have cleaned up all the toys.  This was after we spent the afternoon babysitting Callie's friend N. The kids had a marvelous time together, and had some very elaborate things set up for all the little animals.  And I'll have you know that at this very second, this same floor is clean and vacuumed!  (By the way, that adorable ladybug ride-on toy.... Delaney calls it her "Lainey-Bug!"  So cute!)    

Delaney loves the "Once Upon a Potty" video.  She has watched it at least once every day. No, we are not potty training, but when we do, she'll be ready!

This is Callie.  She cannot open the screen door by herself.  This is incredibly annoying, because Callie will go outside and when she needs something, or wants to come in, she will ring the doorbell repeatedly.  And usually she doesn't even need to come in, she just wanted to give me a flower or put a "special rock" inside.  Sigh.  I'd be happier if she needed help to get out, rather than in.

This is Dan's car.  It sat in the garage waaay too long without getting to go for a ride.   Plus, I'm pretty sure the battery was last replaced in law school, which would make it at least 6 years old.  This morning I, in all my bulky glory, got to push this thing out of our minuscule garage.  I even managed to do it without running into the side of the garage or anything else.  This is impressive, because we only have about 3 inches of clearance on either side.  I got it jump started and the girls and I took it out for a new battery.  Yes, I am just that good.

Later we went to Target.  Here are my lovely ladies, trying on sunglasses.  They are so stylin'!

As for me, its been a little stressful this week.  I am 33 weeks pregnant. That means 7 weeks to go.  And I have been having so many contractions. I had a good 24 hours of pretty much non-stop, 5 minute apart ones the other day.  Very stressful, since my sweetie-pie is all the way across the country at the moment.  Should I have gone in?  Maybe.  The only thing they could have done was tell me if I'm "progressing" or if anything was changing in the area of vacating.  If it turned out I really was in labor, then they'd ambulance me over to Bethesda, because they don't do deliveries before 36 weeks here.  So, to get someone to watch the girls (for an indeterminable amount of time, somewhere between 4 hours and possibly up to a week) and to get to the hospital for them to really do nothing was not really how I wanted to spend my time.  Plus, I decided that if I were in denial, then it was all okay.   

On the bright side, I did get the house cleaned.  I figured if someone was going to unexpectedly have to watch my children, I didn't want to be embarrassed by the state of my house.  I also got my hospital bag together, and I put together overnight backpacks for the girls- again, just in case they had to go spend time with someone else unexpectedly.  I even got all my baby stuff together and ready.  Or at least located.  I feel all productive and ready now.... mostly.

The frustrating thing is, that its most likely just practice and I'm un-dilated and will go all the way to my due date.  I don't like this.  I mean, there is always the possibility that this baby will suddenly decide to come early, but there is no way to tell until it happens.  So I'm going to stress for nothing and then later, I'll get to stress that she's not coming.  Ug.  Such a vicious cycle!  Fortunately, I am contraction free at the moment, and feeling better!

For your Amusement

I have seen a lot of bickering and whining and crying this week.  And most of it wasn't even ME!  Somehow, not having the older 2 around has allowed Callie and Delaney to hone their teasing skills on each other.  Add to this the change of routine and all that, and I have dealt with more than my share of unhappy girls. Some days I want to pull out my hair.  Why can't we just be friends?!

Yep, this is the sad, crying face I saw a lot of.  Note that I have already bribed her with a candy to get her cooperation.  I think we were late and I needed to get her out the door so I could drop her off at the babysitter so I could go see the OB.  (All is well, a strong healthy heartbeat of  150-160 beats)  Delaney has just been feeling extra fragile lately.

This is just for you my friends!  I know, people keep looking at me like I'm going to drop this kid any second.  I wish!  However, No, my official due date is Sept 27.  I have 7 weeks officially to go.  I'm just big. Shockingly, I have only gained 18lbs as of Friday, and at least 8 of it will be baby.  I do not know why I resemble whale proportions.  And if you didn't have perfect genes, and were on baby #5, I expect you'd look like a water retaining sea cow as well.  No, I'm not sensitive at all!!  And I think I look a bit bigger because Callie took this picture of me and its from her perspective.   That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

Back to the teasing and crying thing.....  As I was doing my hair this morning, 3 minutes before we needed to walk out the door to church, Callie somehow threw an empty water bottle at Delaney and nailed her around the eye.  I heard the "I'm really hurt" cry and hustled downstairs to see this lovely cut below her eye. It bled a little and puffed a little (and looked a lot worse than this shot conveys), and we eventually made it out the door to church.  One of my pet peeves is that this ward starts a good 10 minutes late (yes, EVERY Sunday!), but today I was glad.  It meant we were there well before the meeting started even though we were technically late.

This is Callie.  Her new favorite movie is "Spirit, Stallion of the Cimmeron" and she has watched it every day now.  I have not let her watch any TV since we got home, so this video is about all the tv she gets.  The funny thing is that it is a sad movie.  Every time she watches it, she cries.  She is so sweet and tenderhearted. Sometimes I have to sit with her.  It makes her so sad, but she loves to watch it.  Go figure!

Neurotic Me

As I grow older, I notice things about me that are different.  I'm not talking about physical stuff; that's a given.  I mean the little neurotic stuff.  For example, I use to ride my bike out to the stables, ride bareback for hours, and then bike home.  I don't actually recall showering as regularly as I went riding.  Nope, a little sweat and horse scent didn't bother me at all!  I don't remember caring, or even noticing that it might be the heat of the summer when I was out there in my horsey world.  Now, as a grown up, I am pretty fastidious.  I like to be clean.  I shower daily, and if I sweat, I want to wash it off.  If I'm going to do something sweaty or that will get me dirty, I have to plan around it so I can shower afterwards.  I have a lot of hair, which takes a while to dry, so I really have to plan my day around my shower.  This can get a bit complicated.  I must plan my exercise and/or icky activities (like house-painting in the middle of summer in Arkansas, or going to the lake or the pool) around when I'm going to shower.  Such a more complicated life than when I was 12!

Something else that's changed is the stuff that grosses me out is now different.  I think I may possibly have an actual minor phobia about this.  You may know that we had mice move into the kitchen while I was gone.  The exterminator came yesterday.  (As an aside, I'm disgusted that I could have done all the stuff he's doing, so we didn't really need him at all.  I just didn't know what to do with the mice.)  The man looked at where the mice were, guessed where they were sneaking in and set some snap-traps.  There are now 2 dead mousies in the house.  The man will be back in a week to check his traps.  Eeeew!  In a week, the sad little mousie corpses will be well on their way to decomposition.   Okay, that is a totally normal thing to be grossed out about.  

My problem is that I am certainly capable of disposing of the traps.  I should be able to pick them up and put them in the trash.  Somehow, I cannot yet seem to make myself do this.  My rational mind tells me it is fine. I know it is.  It won't hurt me.  It won't bite me.  It is just a dead mouse.  I am not afraid of mice.  When they are in cages, they are quite cute.  However, attached to a trap, and very dead...... well, I am having a really hard time with this!  Dan sweetly does not mock me.   He, being in Arizona (or perhaps California by now) cannot do the manly task himself.  Rather than laugh at my inability to remove the mice, he mentioned that we have neighbors and friends I can call to do it for me. I think he has forgotten that I detest asking for help.  So we shall see which is stronger:  My inability to pick up a dead mouse, or my inability to ask for help!

Things I miss

I miss being in Arkansas.  Shocking, I know.  I miss several things about it:

I miss the fruit.  Not as tasty here, for some reason.

I miss the fresh garden produce.  Cuke salad, tomato salad, garlic beans...... yummy!

I miss the endless space for the kids to play.  They don't miss it yet, but they will.

I miss the library.  It had a great kid's room.

I miss Diamond Head Chinese Restaurant.  They had a handy drive through and I could drive by, hand over my $3.51 and drive off with the most marvelous Crab Rangoon ever made.  Sigh.  The gal there knew me by sight.  I miss her. I miss those Crab Rangoon more.  No one else makes them so deliciously! Nothing else compares.

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And now that I am on the subject of things I miss.... I miss my body:

I miss being able to bend over.

I miss being able to roll over at night without needing a crane and pulley.

I miss being able to run 5 miles- now I can barely walk one.

I miss being able to squeeze into places.

I miss being able to drive without the steering wheel poking into my belly.

I definitely miss being able to get up and down without a lot of effort!

I miss being able to grab an errant child.  Now its almost too much work to discipline.  And that's not good.

On the plus side, in 6-8 weeks it will be over and 'll have other things to complain about! But I will NOT miss being pregnant!

Last 3 days!

This is what I've been looking at the last 3 days:

Yikes!  This was much more in focus when it was smaller!  Yes, Delaney napped nicely in the car.  She also teased her sister, cried, whined, giggled, colored, threw toys, watched videos, and did very well.

I finally saw the Arch in St Louis.  I have to tell you I was a bit cross though.  I had gotten on the 64, which was to take me almost all the way home, but it kicked me off onto a detour, and when I took this picture, I had no clue where I was or how I was getting back to the 64.  But I followed all the signs and there it was!

I saw a lot of nothing.

Callie got to be my co-pilot for part of the drive.  She was torn between getting to sit up front with me, or watching movies in the back.  Sitting up front won for an hour or 2 and then it was back to movies.  She was an amazing traveller.  It was a looong, boring drive for us all.  I ate a bag of M&Ms and a bag of Twizzlers to stay awake and I felt so pukey.

I saw waaaay too much construction!  Ug.  I hated it.  Plus, we had to stop almost every hour, and no, it wasn't for me.  Callie had to pee nearly every hour on the hour.  It meant we got to stretch legs regularly though, and that was nice.

We saw lots of lovely Kentucky.

This was where I was going to stop for the night.  Then I realized the hotel was in the middle of downtown.  Yikes!  I hate, hate, hate trying to navigate center-city streets.  So we kept driving.  Unfortunately, in West Virginia, there is nothing.  I mean nothing!  So we kept driving and driving and driving!  I think we went another 2 hours till we found a suitable stopping point.

Who-hoo!!  We made it to Virginia!

Yep, we're in Virginia.  I know it looks like there's plenty of space here, but this was bumper-to bumper, standing traffic from the time we got on the 95, till the time I got off.   I hate traffic!

So yes, Callie, Delaney and I made it home safely.  Callie is busy reacquainting herself with all her toys, and they are now strewn across the floor.  However, she has played quietly pretty much since we arrived home at 4:30 yesterday!  Life is good.