Two Babies

Dear Monkey,

You are such a part of my life already. As I sit here in my boring cubicle, I'm feeling you squirm around inside of me and it makes my day so much brighter. It also made me think about the fact that I won't have to call you "Monkey" for much longer. In 15 days, I'll know your name instead!

In my dreams as of late, your gender wasn't obvious. What has been obvious, though, is the connection between you and your sister. In my dreams, I am holding both of you. We are all snuggled together, whether sitting or walking. Sometimes, I'm holding you and LoveBug wants me to pick her up, too. So I do. I love these dreams, because to me, they affirm that I will be with both of you. They affirm that you two will be close and have that special sibling bond that so many families seem to have a lack of. I love knowing that I will be able to equally and joyously be The Mama to both of my babies.

So, little Monkey, whatever sort of baby you are, I just want you to know that your mama, dad, and big sister are patiently and joyously awaiting for you to join us. We couldn't be complete without you.

Love,
The Mama

Multiple Streams

If Monkey was actually to come on time, I will have 23 weeks and 1 day from now before leaving my current job. Thankfully, I will have a six-week cushion where I'll receive almost full pay (thanks to the sick/personal/vacation time I've been saving), a five-week semi-cushion where I'll receive short term disability (it's like $155.00/week, so not much, but every penny helps!), and a 12-week total cushion where my job will be protected by the FMLA so that I can come back to work here if *gulp* things don't work out for me to be home.

The cushions make me feel a little better, but the fact that I need to figure out a sustainable income from home before the cushion time is up looms in the back of my head every day. I always have 101 ideas of home based businesses that I could run, but each one somehow is shot down either by a lack of funding, lack of time, or other large hurdle that's uncovered in the planning. Lately, I've been hearing a lot about having multiple "streams" of income and how this is a better decision than a traditional job because they all of your eggs aren't in one basket, so to speak. Since this idea keeps popping up everywhere I turn, and I know that I need to be home when this baby arrives, I've decided to change my focus from developing one idea to developing multiple ideas, or "streams."

I'm going to start a list on the side column of this blog to keep track of my ideas and to encourage me in thinking that this dream I have really is possible.

With God, nothing is impossible!

Baby Wiggles

Lovin' feeling my little Monkey wiggle all around and try to push his (or her) way out of my belly. :-)

This is the best part of pregnancy.

Time is ticking...

I haven't been feeling well this week. Naseous, crampy...I even threw up on Monday in the car. The gross thing is that the bucket (with lid) is still sitting on the floor of my car. I just keep forgetting about it when I get home. Yuck. I've got to get on top of things in my life, geesh. There's a lot of stuff going around at work, so I don't know if I have a mild version of something or if this is pregnancy induced.

Amara slept all night from 9:20pm - just before 7:00 am! I haven't had 8 hours of sleep in...I don't even know! It was great and I really need it to happen every night, because I am already feeling totally worn out.

My body has undergone changes lately. For one, I have a belly. I couldn't even button my pants this morning and had to rig up two hair ties to keep the pants in place. I'm trying to get by with two pairs of maternity pants and two pairs of draw string pants, but it's difficult. I also don't have any warm maternity tops, so I'm doing my best to wear bigger shirts with layers. It's working for now, and I'm hoping I can hold out until spring or summer which I have shirts for! Frankly, I want any "extra" money to be spent on paying down debt and buying the things we will need for our babies.

I'm 17 weeks pregnant now, and I'm getting worried that I won't have anything ready for this new kid. I am a failure at maintaining anything but a disasterous home, have no time to make anything for this little one (though I am DETERMINED to either make a quick quilt or some cloth baby shoes!), and just feel so worn out by the time I get home from work and picking up Amara, that even figuring out something for dinner is a huge task (it doesn't help that I can't keep up with the insane amount of dishes, either, nor that the kitchen is ice cold and I don't want Amara out there for long--and I have to wear a coat!).

Okay, so here's my "I'm accomplishing something" list to try to encourage myself:

* Last weekend, I made double batches of cheeseburger pie and an upside down pineapple cake which will go into the freezer. One meal down! My ideal thought is to freeze one meal/week so that I have a decent stockpile before Baby Monkey shows up.

* I have been dilligent at working room by room to get my house organized, even if it's still a disaster. But the bathroom is a lot better, Amara's room is up to date (other than the closet), and I've been faithful in preparing for my Life More Simply blog's "Organize My House!" event.

* I have spent time snuggling and playing with Amara, who will all too soon not want to play with me or who will want to but I can't because I'm taking care of a littler baby. So I consider time with her to be well spent even if it means I wasn't doing something else. I must keep this in perspective!

Yeah, that's it. A measily list of 2 real items. But it's a start, and that's all I can muster up at this point.