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… is what my mind is lately.

There have been a lot of highs and lows just in the last couple of weeks alone. Today was a GREAT day, which was weird because Mondays usually aren’t. Usually the boys are bummed that Daddy had to go back to work and are crabby and generally unruly. Usually I am stressed and pissy because taking care of three little kids alone is no joke, y’all. There is always someone wanting/needing something and sometimes just taking care of everyone’s BASIC needs is impossible. Which makes me feel like a bad mommy.

TODAY, though, we had beautiful weather for the first time in several weeks. The boys and I played outside while the baby took a very long nap.

(Playing outside)

 

(Napping)

 

The baby and I, we are still in that awesome honeymoon phase. I could spend all day sniffing her little head just looking at her all googly-eyed. She is perfection. I don’t even mind (too much, yet) the interrupted sleep and demanding to be held at inconvenient times. I feel really lucky… three times over.

And look! It’s a dress (ish):

One week down, fun with barrettes

Eight days into becoming a family of five. OMG, I have three kids. I can hardly believe that fact myself.

The c-section went well. And by well, I mean that I’ve already forgotten the feeling of being… um… cut into before the anesthesia had really done its full job yet. Yeah. Thank goodness c-sections are relatively short procedures, so it was kind of like ow, ow, ow, ow, owie, ow, ow, OW OW OW, ow… then it was over. And she was really a girl. So that part was nice.

The first couple of nights at home, Baby C woke up every half-hour to hour at the most, had a poopy diaper and wanted to nurse. Even though it hadn’t been that long since the last baby, I had forgotten what that kind of sleep deprivation was like. It’s yucky. But thankfully, we have gotten into a routine of waking up twice per night, which is way more do-able.

The boys seem to be adjusting ok so far. When I got home from the hospital, they seemed extra big and extra rowdy. But they are fascinated by their baby sister and haven’t asked to send her back (yet).

We’ve gotten lots of fun girly presents from friends and family. The boys never knew what hair-clips and barrettes were before this little girl came into their lives, so of course we had to try them out.

Little sister modeling the pink one.

 

That looks fun! Green is for boys, right?

 

And my beautiful handsome little princess second son tries out the blue one. Such a shame to waste that great hair on a boy!

At long last…

We are home, and I am exhausted. But we got the job done! Where job = having a baby!

Camilla June

Born June 1, 2009 at 11:25 am. 8 pounds, 7 ounces.

One week to go!

In one week, we will have a new baby!

I graciously allowed my husband to take one (1) picture of me to mark this momentous occasion. Because I haven’t let him take many prego shots of me at all. Because… ugh. Well, here ‘tis:

A few comments about this pic:

-That’s my mom in the background… HI MOM!

-My belly is GIGANTIC… and yes, I am sure that I’m not having twins. Probably just another GIGANTIC baby. (The boys were both nine and a half pounders.)

- This is the biggest maternity shirt that I have and it is stretched to the max. There is no way that I’m buying a bigger size at this point.

- My arm looks beefy and my kitchen looks messy. Ugh! Don’t you hate it when people critique their own pictures???

So now we are patiently (ha!) waiting out this last week. Here are some things we are doing to pass the time:

Brushing our curly hair to make it as big as possible.

Staring glazed-eyed at the TV…

… in lots of different PJ combinations.

Hugging/biting our stuffed animals.

Aaaaaand doing some bottomless bike riding.

That about wraps it up from our household.

*Totally unrelated! I want to subscribe to a new weekly magazine (we already get Entertainment Weekly). Should I go for People or US Weekly? Or something else?

The Choices You Don't Make

As New Baby Time draws closer (two weeks from yesterday, people!), I think more and more about life choices that we all make. Because it seems to me... the more babies you have, the more responsibilities you have, and the less likely you are to make any major, sweeping life changes. And I always like to feel wistful about things that I'm not likely to get to do. Because I like to torture myself like that, I guess.

So, my life, for example. I am turning 28 this summer, I'm a stay-at-home mom. I live in a small town that is both quaint and picturesque, but has limited opportunities and is a full day's drive away from any sort of big city. I have a few friends here, and several family members. My days are spent largely at home, because with two small kids and another on the way, it is just easier to find things to do in the house. And outside when the weather allows. We spend a lot of time waiting for Daddy to get home from work, because the boys worship their daddy like a golden god.


So that is my life right now. Which makes it really unlikely that I will ever:


1. Live in a Manhattan loft, walking each morning to my high-powered career where I wear heels that cost more than most mortgages and shout things like "don't give me excuses!" to my employees.


2. Join the peace corps and travel to third world countries where I help build schools and teach my wisdom to the native children.


3. Live in a big white farmhouse on the prairie and raise cute farm animals like sheep and pigs and ride my pony around the property and teach my kids to swim in the swimmin' hole.


4. Marry a European prince and live a jet-set lifestyle, impressing people the world over with my impeccable manners and good breeding.

5. Be a surf bum, living in a Hawaiian beach shack with a rock-hard, tanned bod from endless hours of surfing and sun-bleached, dreadlocked hair.

Those are all things that I have seriously wanted to do. Maybe in a different life, right? Does anyone else have any silly dreams that they've had to give up on?

My Half Eff-It List

First of all, I loved reading the comments on my last post about how sweet and wonderful your daughters/nieces are. Thank you for taking the time to write them. It's making me look forward to this baby all the more!


Thanks to the lovely ladies at Semi-Desperate Housewife and All D's, I've been thinking about my (excuse me but I have to say it) Fuck It List. Only I am way too lazy/uninspired to think of 10 things that I don't care about doing in this lifetime. So here are my top 5.

1. I don't care about ever having a natural, or even vaginal, childbirth experience. I don't think this is a very P.C. thing to say these days, either. It seems like pregnant women are very much encouraged to eschew pain meds during childbirth. Use a doula, have a birthing tub, hypnosis, acupuncture, whatever... but LORD don't even TALK about the possibility of getting a c-section because wouldn't that just be the worst thing ever? My first c-section came about after I labored for about 28 hours and never even dilated one *freaking* centimeter. The doctor basically told me, Sweetie it ain't gonna happen without some help, so off we went to surgery. I felt disappointed about it for a while, wondering what I or my doctors did wrong to have it end that way, but I have since come to realize that it doesn't matter how your baby gets here as long as it does get here. And bodies don't always do what they are supposed to do, even when you do everything right. So I am looking forward to my third c-section a little more than I probably should be.

2. I've never thought that running a marathon would be a great goal to have. I know a lot of people aspire to do this... which I think is great, just not for me. I totally want to be physically fit and healthy, but a marathon? Erg. Maybe I am biased because I know a lot of cross-country runners, and I know how fraught with injury the running lifestyle can be. So I guess I will stick to lower-impact forms of exercise for the time being.


3. I've never had the desire to get a tattoo. I guess this is the goody-two-shoes in me rearing her preppy head. I've just always thought that clean skin looks nicer than inked skin. And there is nothing that I can think of that I would want to have printed on a body part of mine forever. Even though I found it easy to commit to my husband for life and then commit to raising kids with him, I don't think I have the kind of commitment in me to get permanent body art.

4. I don't really ever want to have more than one dog at a time. And I say this with a little bit of trepidation because I am always like OOOOOO look at that puppy I WANT IT. But the realistic side of my brain will kick in and tell me to walk slowly away from the cute puppy because I already have one dog at home who annoys me most of the time. When I think of two dogs, I think of two times the vet bills, two times the poop in the yard, two times the muddy paws in the house, etc. I guess I have less patience for doggie shenanigans because it is all taken up by the toddler types around here.

5. I hope I don't ever have to be forced to give up caffeine for any reason. I can't even give it up for pregnancy, for goodness sakes. Never before has a Diet Coke tasted SO GOOD or a cup of coffee in the mornings been SO NECESSARY. Not to even mention my beloved iced tea. I know that it would be a lot healthier to give up caffeine totally, but I just can't make myself even want to do that. The only exception to this is that I will temporarily lay off the good stuff while I have a nursing baby in order not to stimulate the poor child out of a good nap or night's sleep. Because while I do LOVE me some caffeinated beverages, I probably love sleeping more. So that's that.

How Things Are

Pregnancy update:

I'm huge and cranky. The end.

Just kidding. Sort of.

I am 33 weeks along now, and inching slowly towards our June 1st delivery date. That is the beauty of the planned c-section. It is just so... planned. I have my mom and my mother-in-law lined up to take care of the boys while we're in the hospital. I feel at ease knowing that they will be sharing the responsibility, because these boys are high energy lately and are kind of a lot of work. Or maybe it just seems like it because I am so low-energy and can hardly haul my rear around the house these days.

At my OB appointment last week, the doctor commented that my weight gain looked pretty good so far. I laughed out loud and told him that it certainly isn't because I'm not eating everything that I can get my hands on. I guess that is just the benefit from having to chase around two little ones when I would rather be making my indentation on the couch even deeper. This is the same doctor that I've used for my two previous pregnancies, and he has NEVER said anything like that before. So I was kind of pleased, even though PLEASE it's not like I am one of those "skinny" pregnant people AT ALL. Maybe it means that I will gain marginally less than my usual 50+ pound pregnancy weight gain. Hooray.

I am getting very excited about meeting the baby. I wonder if she will look like her brothers. I wonder if she will act like her brothers. I have three nieces that were all colicky, crying babies for the first six months or so of their lives. I have this idea in my head that THAT is how girl babies are. I really hope not, because my boys were both such sweet babies and I loved that time with them. I hope I don't get some little hellion who makes me wish that I had practiced birth control methods more thoroughly. I wonder if she is going to be a girl at all, or if I will get a delivery room surprise. Because you know there are ALWAYS people around to tell you about the person they know whose ultrasound showed they were having a girl, but then *oops* it was a boy instead. Not that another boy wouldn't be great... but there is the issue of all this pink stuff we have now.

MC surprised me the other day when he mentioned how great it would be to have two boys AND two girls. My mouth dropped open because up to now, he had always been the one most adamant about stopping at three kids no matter what. The thing is, I would be open to having a fourth child if I knew that it would also be a girl, because I like the idea of having a set of brothers and a set of sisters. However, we all know that there are no guarantees as far as the baby's sex is concerned. It's all a big crap-shoot. Which makes me nervous. Did I mention how I like things that are planned???

So anyway, it looks like the possibility of getting my tubes tied is off the table for sure. I am thinking IUD for a few years, then having MC get the big V(asectomy) when we decide we are done, done, done with having kids for sure.

Does anyone want to tell me about how sweet their girls were as babies and how they NEVER cried and slept ALL THE TIME? I would much appreciate!