THAT sort of day.

It's one of those days. You know, the one where you put on your sexiest bra and wear a thong just because some part of your life, no matter how minuscule or private, needs to feel good about itself.

I am a grouch. I don't want to be a mean mom because of it, so I'm going to do my complaining here and then pick myself up and move on.

First off, I'm freakin' tired. Really, does a person need to stay up until 1am? Especially if she is going to get up with her kids multiple times a night and then be up for the day by 0730? I am thinking not so much unless she's doing CPR on her neighbor. That's the main thing. If I wasn't so tired, I could handle life a lot better.

Somehow, being tired and not having life go the way you actually want it to go makes all of the little things seem like big things. Like the fact that I don't own a pair of jeans that look cute on me. Good heavens, why is it so hard to find a pair of pants that fit a ghetto booty and smaller waist? Impossible around Upstate NY, apparently. So then one could deduce that I need to lose weight. Well, that's obvious. But instead of doing what I need to do to accomplish that (which I really do want to do), I am eating cold, leftover pizza with my 2-year-old for breakfast. Yes, mommy is on a roll today.

Speaking of Upstate NY, why do we even live here? It's dark, freezing, has the worst tax rates in the COUNTRY, and one of the highest (if not the highest) depression rates.

Depression reminds me that all of the people I know are depressed. I want to help them but can't. I hate having my hands tied.

At least now that I'm on the topic of other people, I can get the focus off of myself.

So dear depressed people in the world, I am going to work on saving you today. All while wearing my sexy bra and a thong.

32 Weeks

At my 32-week appointment, I discussed with Deb the fact that I needed to go off work. I was having contractions constantly, was out of breath all the time, and would black out if I stood up, bent down, etc.. Not good. She agreed without hesitation and I didn't go to work the next day.

Thank God.

My last day working (Monday), my boss called me in and told me that I was the only employee to ever talk to HR about problems (which I know for a fact is untrue). I had recently just sent an honest "is it legal for me to have to take sick or vacation time for a Dr.'s appointment as a salaried employee" email to our HR guy. The reason? I was singled out and asked to do that when no one else was. Just a questions. Seriously.

Anyway, the whole conversation with my boss was really overwhelming to me. He brought up the whole issue surrounding the symposium last year that I presented at (the one that my boss' boss told me that I didn't need to bring my baby to the three day event because nursing was "neither important or necessarry." Oh YES she did.), and made it clear that they were still holding it against me. WOW. Especially when they were legally and ethically wrong with that incident.

Well, as soon as I was taken off of work, my contractions stopped. I thought it might be coincidental until I saw my boss while I was driving about a week later. As soon as I realized it was him, I began having big contractions again. I'm thinking I was stressed out a bit at that job.

The shortness of breath and blacking out continued until a few weeks later when we realized my iron was at a dangerously low level. Once I began an iron supplement that got a WHOLE lot better, too.

After all of that drama, I spent my days finally preparing for my son to arrive and finally got to experience being a stay-at-home mom. Sick, ridiculously pregnant or not, I got to raise my daughter. Finally.

I will write...

It's been so long that I have reguarly kept up either of my blogs, but particularly this one. The reason for that is threefold: 1) I was taken off of work when I was 32-weeks pregnant with Timothy and thus lost my Internet connection. 2) After he was born and we got the Internet at our house, my life was so ridiculously, insanely, crazy with a 20-month-old and newborn that taking 3 minutes to sit down at the computer was out of the question. 3) life has been very tumultuous the last few months and making myself process it with words is a lot harder than ignoring it altogether.

But I'm going to begin writing again.

It will take me a while to catch up, but I am going to push through the past as quickly as possible so I can being writing about today again.

I need it. Writing is cathartic for me.

Dating

I wish we were still dating. There are a lot of things I miss...

being held. What I'd give to just be held again without knowing that you don't really want to be doing it.

making out. Really. It's either all or nothing and I'd love to just flirt and make out with you sometimes.

you playing with my hair. Once in the last almost-5-years. Why on earth do I have to keep it long if it never gets touched?

talking. Listening.

Laughing. Do we ever laugh any more?

Cuddling.

So here's my advice: date more, be married less. Don't rush marriage, because sometimes all it does is get you married and you lose your boyfriend in the process.

So please, husband, date me again so I can remember.

More than 18-months

My Facebook ticker just told me that I have been "providing mama's milk for 1 year and 7 months" today.

That means that my beautiful girl is 19-months-old now.

I want to weep.

I want to celebrate.

I am so glad that she's mine. I honestly believe God chose me to be the luckiest mother in all of the world. I don't know why he did, but boy, am I glad!

<3

Quick Updates

Monkey is beautiful, seriously. Our ultrasound that I upped to March 19th showed us that. The technician was wonderful and took the time to check all sorts of things, not just look for the stomach. It made me feel a LOT better. Unfortunately, the recording system was still down on the machine so we didn't end up getting a video, but he did do a 3D for us and --wow-- we have a beautiful boy in there. He is so perfect.

At first, the tech couldn't find the stomach and when he did, he said that it wasn't the shape that he'd LIKE to see, but that he didn't see anything else indicating a problem. It wasn't until our appointment with Deb on April 6th that we heard the radiologist cleared everything. Hooray! What a relief to know my pregnancy symptoms are just that, even if they are a little weird.

Monkey moved to be head down on April 1st. You'd think that I was engaged at that point, how low he is. I do think that he is engaged now though, and did so about two weeks ago. I can palpate his head right in my pelvis, and the pressure I feel on my cervix every step I take! It does make me a little nervous knowing that he's so low so soon--this doesn't usually happen with boys or with a 2nd pregnancy until close to when the baby's born. :-\ Part of me is still convinced that there's no way I'll go on my due date let alone any earlier, but...all of these things make me wonder. My younger sister's baby was born 4 weeks early and my older sister who's due 4 weeks ahead of Monkey had her water break about 2 weeks ago...So am I going to follow my own pattern, or will I be following the "boy" pattern in my family?!

Oh, and I've been having contractions. I've had a lot of braxton hicks this entire pregnancy, but I'm pretty much going into them every time I walk since Saturday evening. Only a few have been painful, but I can tell they're pushing him down because when I had a good one last night, I could feel a lot of pressure on my cervix until it was over.

To top off all of my physical things, I'm having drama at work. It's a long story, but I was told that I shouldn't be talking to HR about anything. Yup. That's me, Ms. Trouble Maker because I breastfeed my child and want things to be fair for all employees. Ha. With both of these things plus my regular stress from not being able to keep up on basic houshold chores and such, we're planning on talking to Deb about whether I should continue to work or not when we see her on May 3. I have a lot of emotions about that, but not enough time to write them all down so it will have to be another post.

In short, my pregnancy continues to fly by and my almost-18-month-old daughter continues to become more beautiful every day.

To Do Lists

I can't seem to keep track of how far along I am, so I try to look at my calendar where every Wednesday's box includes a handwritten number, one digit higher than the previous week's. Even though I see this calendar every day at work, I was still shocked to see a "27" written for this week. And then again when I looked at it this morning because I couldn't remember if I was 26 or 27-weeks along. Yeah, it's definitely 27.

That means if I was to give birth "on time" (which won't happen), I'll be doing so 13 weeks from now. That just doesn't seem possible...I have a ridiculous amount of things to still do before Monkey's arrival and besides, I sense no impending doom or delivery, so...it's easy to ignore (save the fact that I can't reach anything or get off of our couch by myself because my belly's so big and also that I have to cross my legs and pray not to pee every time I cough or sneeze). But he's coming, I tell myself. I know this in my mind.

Frankly, I need to get my butt in gear. I'm exhausted, sick, have a nursing toddler, work full time, and have a house and husband to deal with. This just doesn't leave any time in my schedule for baby-preparation things so I'm left to dream and mentally list what needs to be done instead of actually do it. Too bad my thoughts can't osmotically make their way into my house and accomplish what needs to be done for me. ;-)

I also spend time thinking about the things I want to do someday when I'm able to. These things are more fun and I get a bit more excited thinking about them, so without further ado, here are my want and need "To Do" lists:

Things I want to do

• Start a Play blog featuring information, ideas, toy reviews, and giveaways written by ME--the Recreation Therapist. :-) Just think of all of the awesome, wholesome toys and educational products I could get my hands on for my own kiddos and to pass on to other people since my house wouldn't be big enough to keep everything. :-)
• Create and enter recipes into magazine contests every month.
• Make a baby scrapbook for LoveBug and Monkey.
• Quilt
• Landscape my house--bah, it looks so...ugly.
• Play piano every day
• Record a lullabye CD for my children

Things I need to do

• Organize my house (next 10 weeks)
• Clean my house (next 10 weeks)
• Finish getting needed items for Baby Monkey (next 12 weeks)
• Find summer clothes for LoveBug (next 6 weeks, then yard sales after that)
• Stop gaining weight so fast (immediately). I'm going to be a balloon and have a ton to loose after giving birth if I keep going at the rate I am.
• Make and freeze more food (next 8 weeks)

Would someone hold back that clock, please, and then just fast-forward my life when I'm ready for it?