They always say each pregnancy is different and you can't really predict what will happen based on the others. True statement. This kid is throwing us for a loop. While I've had tons of Braxton-Hicks contractions towards the end with the other two kids, I never really had real ones until it was go time. Not so this time around. I'm 12 days from my due date and I've had two nights this last week where I contracted for at least three or four hours, long enough to start to get my hopes up that it was the real thing starting, and then it fizzled out. I even started making phone calls and plans with various people to watch my kids in case things really got going because what seemed like an excellent idea a couple months ago to have my mom come just two days before my due date to maximize the time she had here now might mean she will be here after he's born instead of before. Though honestly, at this point I'd just be in heaven if he came early and we'd figure out the details and make it work.
So yes, I was doing just fine on the waiting game, but It's throwing me off my mental game to get teased like this. I mean, it's 8am and I've already had a few random contractions this morning. I'm of the opinion that all contractions are good ones. They all get me that much closer to him being here, but let's just get on with this, child!
In totally unrelated news, my children are laying on the floor behind me quietly reading books to themselves. It's precious. I love them so much. They're going to get a seriously awesome present here in the next few days with their new little brother making his grand entrance. They've both really gotten into baby dolls these last few weeks and little do they know, their very own live baby doll is about to arrive. Well, they do know, but I'm not sure they completely get it. Genevieve calls my stomach by his name. I wonder if she'll keep doing that after he's born. This is Spencer's second go around, so I think he gets it much more. Either way, it's going to be very fun here in just a few days. I can't wait!
Monday, June 30, 2014
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Super mom moments
Being pregnant with two small kids besides has been pretty rough going on the doing fun things front. We stay home a whole lot more than we ever did before. We watch a lot of movies. The kids know their way around our tablets and Bill's iPhone way better than I would like. They think going outside and running up and down the stairs is incredibly fun. That just makes me think we really need to get out more. But it's kind of how things are for now and a few more weeks and then the baby will come and I can't help but start feeling better and be able to actually move again, and things will get much more normal again. For now though we take one day at a time and do the best we can.
Last week I thought it would be a great idea to go to the lake, so we did that for our playgroup with some friends. It was great except for the part where both of their floaties worked against them instead of helping them and I had to run over and rescue them. I had tried out a couple new floaties I acquired over the winter and they just don't work that well when your head is heavier than your legs. That's what comes from having kids with heads in the 90+ percentile. Spencer had a blow up life vest and at one point he lost his balance and floated onto his back. He tried to roll over to stand up and ended up floating on his stomach trying to get his feet under him. He would have managed it about a second after I got there to lift him up. Genevieve did essentially the same thing with her floatie thing, only she really couldn't get up. I saw her tipping over and was up and running the few feet to reach her as she fell, but she still flailed face down for a few seconds and scared herself and me. She stuck really close to me the rest of the time we were there, poor traumatized girl. So lesson learned, the floatie things don't work so well for my kids at this point. They would have been better off without them. It did give me two opportunities to save the day, but I'd rather not have that need. The kids still just love the water, so we'll be back, but it definitely pays to be careful and keep a close eye on them. I haven't heard that many good things about swim lessons around here, so we haven't gone that route yet, but we'll figure something out so they're better off in the future.
Yesterday I had another super mom moment. Spencer was playing on our office chair while I sat on the floor nearby reading books. He managed to tip it over backwards. I saw him going down and lunged forward to help the chair land softly. I succeeded enough that he was hardly even bothered and just wanted me to pick the chair back up for him. Yeah, I was like calm down child! I'm not sure my knee and hip are working right after that lunge. They were kind of tweaked the rest of the day, but they're fine now.
So here's to my kids' needs giving me magical powers to move WAY faster than I can about 98 percent of the time these days. I've seen parents do things like that many times in the past, so I guess now I'm in the club. :) 2.5 weeks left until I join a different kind of super parent club, the one where I don't have enough hands for all my kids and we figure out all the exciting things that will bring. I'm ready for it, folks!
I haven't been able to catch any good pictures of the kids lately, so I took a million yesterday and these two came out. Yay!
I have a diffuser I got a month or so ago and Bill made a super cool cover for it to replace the little silver knob you can see in the second picture, just because he's awesome like that. 3D printers are really cool! He has one they just got at his wind tunnel and they've been testing it out on these kinds of things. It's incredible the detail you can get.
Last week I thought it would be a great idea to go to the lake, so we did that for our playgroup with some friends. It was great except for the part where both of their floaties worked against them instead of helping them and I had to run over and rescue them. I had tried out a couple new floaties I acquired over the winter and they just don't work that well when your head is heavier than your legs. That's what comes from having kids with heads in the 90+ percentile. Spencer had a blow up life vest and at one point he lost his balance and floated onto his back. He tried to roll over to stand up and ended up floating on his stomach trying to get his feet under him. He would have managed it about a second after I got there to lift him up. Genevieve did essentially the same thing with her floatie thing, only she really couldn't get up. I saw her tipping over and was up and running the few feet to reach her as she fell, but she still flailed face down for a few seconds and scared herself and me. She stuck really close to me the rest of the time we were there, poor traumatized girl. So lesson learned, the floatie things don't work so well for my kids at this point. They would have been better off without them. It did give me two opportunities to save the day, but I'd rather not have that need. The kids still just love the water, so we'll be back, but it definitely pays to be careful and keep a close eye on them. I haven't heard that many good things about swim lessons around here, so we haven't gone that route yet, but we'll figure something out so they're better off in the future.
Yesterday I had another super mom moment. Spencer was playing on our office chair while I sat on the floor nearby reading books. He managed to tip it over backwards. I saw him going down and lunged forward to help the chair land softly. I succeeded enough that he was hardly even bothered and just wanted me to pick the chair back up for him. Yeah, I was like calm down child! I'm not sure my knee and hip are working right after that lunge. They were kind of tweaked the rest of the day, but they're fine now.
So here's to my kids' needs giving me magical powers to move WAY faster than I can about 98 percent of the time these days. I've seen parents do things like that many times in the past, so I guess now I'm in the club. :) 2.5 weeks left until I join a different kind of super parent club, the one where I don't have enough hands for all my kids and we figure out all the exciting things that will bring. I'm ready for it, folks!
Tuesday, June 17, 2014
Counting down the days
I'm having a hard time focusing on anything but that I have 3.5 weeks left before I have this baby, give or take. Wooh! It's definitely that last chunk where I'm just hanging on for dear life trying not to go crazy as I wake up five or six times a night, can't get comfortable in any position in the evenings, and he is playing bumper cars with my organs, particularly my bladder and lungs. I'd love to have him right now, but at the same time I don't really want him to come early because then my mom wouldn't be here, and it will be so much simpler logistically if she's here. So I'm counting down days and trying to make the time go by a little faster than it feels like it's going. This is my most recent picture, taken yesterday at 36 weeks along and a couple days. See? Totally counting the days. :)
In other news, Genevieve has finally reliably figured out how to open her door. So now she peeks out a number of times after we put the kids to bed at night to see if anything interesting is happening. We also get exciting visits in the wee hours of the morning like the other day when she showed up at 4:30AM poking Bill's elbow requesting a diaper change as she had pooped in the middle of the night. That's better than screaming from her bed, but still a bit startling. This morning she showed up at my shoulder again at 4:30AM with her blanket and dog and hopped up to cuddle in with me. I can't say it really bothers me since I'm already up the aforementioned five or six times a night, so that was just one more wakeup. Plus, she's really cute when she's sharing my pillow. We don't typically have our kids sleep with us, so the occasional night is good for the moment. We'll see how it develops. I always like when my kids develop new skills that allow them to be more independent. Sometimes it requires then teaching them some new boundaries, but the tradeoff is worth it to me.
Monday, June 9, 2014
Changes in responsibilities
I got my undergraduate degree in Recreation Management and Youth Leadership. It was a delightful experience that I wouldn't change, but I have not worked in that field since about eight months after I graduated. It just didn't end up being what I wanted to do professionally. I went on to get a master's degree in Public Administration, which is much more up my alley, though truth be told, I am not working in that field either at the moment and do not know if I ever will. Regardless of if I make money with those degrees though, I will always use the skills I acquired either in church responsibilities or volunteering in the community or in raising my family. I don't regret a moment of the time and energy I put into both degrees. Education is an amazing thing.
Back in the day when I was still working on my undergrad, we used a lot of the Boy Scouts of America's content for some of our classes. At that point I knew the proper workings of a Boy Scout troop of any age and type like the back of my hand. I always wondered when and how I would have that part of my personal skill set drawn upon by church responsibilities. I figured someday I would be called into Cub Scouts. At the time that didn't sound that exciting, but eight years later (omg, I can't believe that's the case, but it really has been that long since I graduated from college the first time) I have a different perspective on life and different priorities. So when I was asked to meet with a member of my ward's bishopric a few weeks ago, I was interested to see what they would ask me to do. I've been serving in the Relief Society presidency for the past year, but it was time to reorganize. I was doing activities there, which is often where I'm called as a result of being an event planner for three years after my undergrad, but I was ready for a change. I've felt like invariably I get called into that type of calling because it's something I'm good at, but I had a new thought recently. A good chunk of the responsibilities we are asked to fulfill in the church turn out to be activities callings. Working with the youth almost always involves planning events. Teaching a primary class is a weekly opportunity to rediscover your imagination and figure out ways to keep kids entertained and learning. So maybe it's more that I'm willing to serve and there are lots of opportunities for those kinds of callings than how well I plan activities.
Anyway, I'm rambling. Back to my new calling. I laughed out loud when the member of the bishopric asked me to be a Cub Scout Den Leader. I'm pretty far removed from that undergrad degree now and few people know about it. I'm surprised it took so long to be asked to do this, but I'm pretty excited about it. No Sunday responsibilities, just a one night a week evening for some of the 8-11 year olds. With two and nearly three little ones, being flexible at church on Sunday will be really nice. Heck, time flies by. It won't be that long before my own kids are in that age group. Five years isn't that much time. So here I am, coming full circle finally eight years later to my RMYL roots. It's going to be fun and I'm sure plenty crazy. I can handle that. I enjoyed Relief Society, but I'm happy to move onto a less gravity filled calling that will just be fun. Now I just need to brush up on my memories of how the heck Cub Scouts works and maybe go shopping for one of those super stylish yellow Scout uniform shirts. lol. Good times.
Back in the day when I was still working on my undergrad, we used a lot of the Boy Scouts of America's content for some of our classes. At that point I knew the proper workings of a Boy Scout troop of any age and type like the back of my hand. I always wondered when and how I would have that part of my personal skill set drawn upon by church responsibilities. I figured someday I would be called into Cub Scouts. At the time that didn't sound that exciting, but eight years later (omg, I can't believe that's the case, but it really has been that long since I graduated from college the first time) I have a different perspective on life and different priorities. So when I was asked to meet with a member of my ward's bishopric a few weeks ago, I was interested to see what they would ask me to do. I've been serving in the Relief Society presidency for the past year, but it was time to reorganize. I was doing activities there, which is often where I'm called as a result of being an event planner for three years after my undergrad, but I was ready for a change. I've felt like invariably I get called into that type of calling because it's something I'm good at, but I had a new thought recently. A good chunk of the responsibilities we are asked to fulfill in the church turn out to be activities callings. Working with the youth almost always involves planning events. Teaching a primary class is a weekly opportunity to rediscover your imagination and figure out ways to keep kids entertained and learning. So maybe it's more that I'm willing to serve and there are lots of opportunities for those kinds of callings than how well I plan activities.
Anyway, I'm rambling. Back to my new calling. I laughed out loud when the member of the bishopric asked me to be a Cub Scout Den Leader. I'm pretty far removed from that undergrad degree now and few people know about it. I'm surprised it took so long to be asked to do this, but I'm pretty excited about it. No Sunday responsibilities, just a one night a week evening for some of the 8-11 year olds. With two and nearly three little ones, being flexible at church on Sunday will be really nice. Heck, time flies by. It won't be that long before my own kids are in that age group. Five years isn't that much time. So here I am, coming full circle finally eight years later to my RMYL roots. It's going to be fun and I'm sure plenty crazy. I can handle that. I enjoyed Relief Society, but I'm happy to move onto a less gravity filled calling that will just be fun. Now I just need to brush up on my memories of how the heck Cub Scouts works and maybe go shopping for one of those super stylish yellow Scout uniform shirts. lol. Good times.
Sunday, June 1, 2014
Finished room
I finished, minus a final couple coats of polyurethane, Genevieve's bed this week. It really finishes off their room. She loves it. With the addition of a quilt my grandma made me when I was 16, the colors look much better. We ought to have a quilt of some sort to spruce up Spencer's bed, plus some new sheets that are more fun colors, but otherwise their new beds are done. He probably wouldn't keep a quilt on now anyway, so it's not a big deal, but I like having more color in there than there currently is.
It's good timing that I finished because I just passed the honeymoon phase of my pregnancy where I felt great most of the time and now am in the six-week slog to the finish where I'm pretty uncomfortable most of the time. It's not really that exciting, but hey, it's June 1st and he's due early-ish next month, so that helps my mental game!
In other random news I'm pretty sure my tomato plants are bigger right now and have more tomatoes on them than we got the entire last summer. Save or one they are all still green, but we are going to have tomatoes coming out of our ears this summer and I'm so excited!
I like to send pictures off to the kids' grandparents a couple times a year and I had a reminder pop up to do that this week. So I started scrolling through my pictures and realized I don't have a single picture of Genevieve smiling since Easter. Crazy kid! She's hard to pin down long enough to take a clear picture and adding a smile to that makes it even tougher. But I took a couple snapshots this week and they turned out cute. The giraffe photo bombing the first picture is Spencer's current favorite stuffed animal. That's right, Spencer's. Genevieve loves it too, but that doesn't surprise me. She has always liked stuffed animals and dolls and action figures and such. Spencer not so much. But he loves this thing with all his heart and it gets integrated into his play all the time now. I like it. In fact it turns out we have a lot of giraffe figures and the kids have both latched onto them as their current favorite animal. Kind of fun.
It's good timing that I finished because I just passed the honeymoon phase of my pregnancy where I felt great most of the time and now am in the six-week slog to the finish where I'm pretty uncomfortable most of the time. It's not really that exciting, but hey, it's June 1st and he's due early-ish next month, so that helps my mental game!
In other random news I'm pretty sure my tomato plants are bigger right now and have more tomatoes on them than we got the entire last summer. Save or one they are all still green, but we are going to have tomatoes coming out of our ears this summer and I'm so excited!
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