Laying it on the line

I like to think I am pretty honest with myself, but sometimes I can wrap a suit of denial around myself pretty tightly and lumber along as if everything is alright. For awhile.

But then I just get to the point where I know what I'm feeling inside isn't jiving with what I'm telling myself or others.

So here is the truth.

1. Even though I am glad to be a stay-at-home mom and wouldn't have it any other way, there are just some parts I absolutely, positively hate with a raging passion. And one of those parts is staying home with a sick kid or kids. I simply cannot handle the cooped-up-ness of it all. It's like how I used to feel on Christmas Day when I was a kid. I had no choice but to stay home because everyone else was celebrating with their families, and nothing was open (like the mall or school). I simply get depressed very quickly when I have a day or days like this. Suffice it to say, if there is ever a quarantine associated with the swine flu or any other communicable disease near me, I ain't gonna handle it well at all.

2. Even though I bitched to high heaven about taking my two graduate courses between January and August, it is a damn good thing I had them to occupy me because the truth is I am totally fucking scared outta my mind to have this third child. Especially when I have a day like today with N home sick(ish) (sorta). What am I gonna do over the winter break from school having 3 kids at home all day long? I have been able to push thoughts like this aside for a long time, but reality is starting to hit home.

3. Even though I felt I wanted 3 kids, I have to admit that being pregnant now, after having gotten a little bite of the freedom that comes with having a kid in school all. day. long., makes me feel more than a little out of sorts. I am starting all over again with the postpartum junk and the nursing and the sleeplessness. I hate to say this because no one wants to admit their negative feelings about being pregnant or having children. But it is the truth for me right now. I feel alot of guilt admitting it because it makes me "sound like" I don't want this baby. And I do want this baby. I just don't want all the work and headache and responsibility that comes with having a baby.

That is the thing about parenthood that poses another big challenge for me: how I can feel two or even three totally different emotions at the exact same time. Like those moments when I think, "I love my kids to the point I would die for them, but I can't stand being around them."

So there's my ugly truth. It's not pretty, but it's what I'm feeling.

Doldrums

N has diarrhea. Riveting news, I know, but it has sent me into the doldrums because she will have to stay home from school tomorrow. She doesn't have a fever and isn't acting sick...she has just had a couple episodes of the runs today, and I don't want that happening at school. I don't want it happening at home either, but I'm her mom so this is what I signed up for (this particularly un-fun part of mothering was noted in the small print, apparently).

So having her home tomorrow totally messes up my weekday schedule, and my panties get into such a twist when my routine is messed with. Hence the reason I hate, hate, hate the weekends.

Since having children, the weekends have become the bane of my existence. Because, and I know I have blogged about this before, I never get a weekend. I don't get to sleep in. I don't get to "not work my regular job." I still have to clean up messes, deal with children, run errands, etc, etc. And it just plain sucks ass.

Being extremely pregnant certainly doesn't help either.

Maybe this is part of the reason I have, since becoming a mom, extended my

birthday celebration of Sep 13th into my birthmonth celebration. Next weekend, I am going for a haircut and color, and maybe a pedicure as the cherry on top of the day. I am scheduling my pregnancy massage for nearer my birthday. I will celebrate with my parents and with my kids/hubby with some sort of meal/dessert thingy around mid-month. I'm going to take advantage of turning 36 by doing some of the things I want to do.....because I rarely get to do them.

I spend so much of my time looking after everyone else's needs that I ignore my own. Lord knows I know I have them....they just get pushed back, pushed back, ignored, denied.

With feeling so darn tired and out of sorts, I have been having a wee little pity party for myself, but I read N some stories about families living during the pioneer days, and I know I am such a complete wuss. Pioneer women baked meals from scratch every day and had to hoe the garden even when they were very pregnant, and their husbands forced them to travel in a wagon cross-country to have a bigger yard. They didn't have automatic washers and dryers and Kroger stores nearby. Or Lexapro to get them through the doldrums.

But this too shall pass. N will be over her GI issues and back at school, and my week will fall back into place, and eventually I will not feel and look like a beached whale.

Happenings

And life just keeps moving on.....

It has been an incredibly busy two weeks since N started kindergarten.
Here are the highlights.

Waiting for the bus. So fracking exciting!
(Well, at least the first day was for mom....not so much since.)

N's first time being on a school bus.

She is totally loving school, and I am totally loving her being in school because 1. she is learning and having fun and being happily occupied. Secondly, I get a break from having two kids and feeling pathetically under-equipped to keep them sufficiently happy and non-bored. It is astounding how much easier it is to keep a 2-year-old interested than a 5-year-old. Toddlers have very low expectations. Seeing a caterpillar is super fun and means multiple minutes of time-passing. Virtually anything is interesting to a toddler.

Visited our local and much-loved My Gym when Elmo was there.
N is to the stage where she asked, "Is that really Elmo?"
G knew it was Elmo, and when we returned to class on Monday, he said, "Elmo, My Gym," to which I replied, "No, Elmo had to go back to Sesame Street."
And for the rest of the day, G talked about Elmo being back on Sesame Street.

Last night, while brushing N's teeth, I brushed out her top left tooth. Surprised both of us. She is doing her punk rock face here.

And today was the State Fair with Pa and Nana. G got to see cows, horses, sheep, pigs and all the tractors a young boy could dream of seeing (unless he was at a John Deere showroom). He also got to get on a TARC bus and a firetruck. Hot damn it was a good day!

Moan, whimper

That's it. I have reached "that point." That place in late pregnancy when one is really, truly tired of feeling like part of the cast of Alien....specifically, the man who has the alien burst out of his abdominal cavity.

Last night while attempting to read in bed, baby #3 decided to do some power aerobics or something. I have never seen my belly move like that. I guess my uterus is good and stretched out now that it's on its third go round. As much as feeling fetal movement is amazing and cool, I am about tired of it because now it really hurts. I keep thinking the baby is lying transverse because I keep feeling long, deep pokes waaaay over on my right side. But who knows? I've had one head-down, one head-up, so this one might as well do something original.

And those of you who have been pregnant before know that weird feeling like the baby is tickling the backside of your cervix? Yep, that's happening too. Like a hand or foot is just gonna pop out any moment.

D and my MIL are constantly asking, "Are you ok?" because every movement I make is usually accompanied by heavy breathing and/or sighing and often some grunting. I have turned into a troll.

And the funniest thing is that even though I know I have felt like this twice before, I totally don't remember any of it or if I do the memories are fuzzy and nebulous. Mother Nature can be a raving bitch, but she is also a fucking genius.

Here's to 6.5 more weeks of being my own science experiment.

Marking stuff off my list

Today I filed paperwork that had been sitting in the office for....well, I don't really know how long. I also attempted to do some scrapbooking, but I ran out of tape after the first picture. Clearly, I wasn't meant to do that today.

Next weekend, D is going to put up the crib in our bedroom, and N said she would help me put the baby linens on it.

Still on my to-do list or my "nag hubby until he does it" list:

1. Buy newborn diapers

2. Finish scrapbooking all pics from April-current

3. Sand & paint wall behind bookshelf in basement --this is D's job. I just gotta harass.

4. Try to repair the VCR -- another job for D. I get to improve my badgering skills.

5. If VCR can't be fixed, take to electronics recycling center along with shredder that no longer works.

6. Put down more lava rock in front flower beds.

7. Buy G's birthday invites, plates, napkins, etc.

8. Schedule a pregnancy massage.

There is more that needs to be done, but I haven't thought of it yet.

Nesting mode has hit. D and I broke down old speaker boxes that had been sitting in our basement for 7 years. I feel the need to purge the closets for Goodwill donations.

Nothing like knowing that for the next 2 years or so, you will have virtually no free time and so I better do alot of shit now.

"Slight" baby fever

Last night my niece was baptized. While the priest was holding her up after pouring the water on her head, I couldn't help but feel a little buzz of excitement over the idea of having a new baby. Now that my class is over, I am starting to realize that in 7 short weeks I will be a new mom again.

I have never been a big fan of the newborn "wormy" stage, when all they do is eat, sleep and poop. It is only a small step away from pregnancy parasitism----still sucking the life out of you but in a way that makes them far more difficult to carry around. But I suspect because this is my last child, I will relish the newborn period in a way I never have before (well, in a 3 seconds a day I might have to actually relish anything).

Increasingly, I am wondering what gender the baby is and what he/she will look like. Will he/she pop out with reddish hair like the other two....soon to be followed by blonde? Will he/she have blue eyes that stay blue? Will he/she be lefties like the other two? Or will D and I finally have a child who actually resembles us in some obvious way?

More and more, friends and acquaintances have been asking if I have any sense of what gender the baby is, and I absolutely do not. This pregnancy has been kinda in the middle of the other two. My hope is that this doesn't equal hermaphroditism.

In a way, I hope it is a girl for two reasons: 1. I love to buy girl clothes, and 2. If N and I do not develop a close adult relationship like what my mom and I have, I at least have a chance with another daughter. However, with the age difference between N and this baby, they might not develop a friendship quite as readily as G and this baby would if it is a boy.

Logistically, it would be so much easier if this baby is a boy. Dump him and G in the same room---space issues totally resolved. But good grief, the idea of having two boys two years apart in age is freaking scary.

So that's where I'm standing right now in terms of excitement about this baby. Not shouting to the moon with joy, but a calm sense of knowing I better cherish what is left of my pregnancy and the newborn period of my last baby.

Bargain hunter

I have a male FB friend who occasionally mentions that for some reason or another he may need to surrender his "man card." It just recently occurred to me that on some level I should probably have to surrender my woman card, and the primary reason is I really hate to shop.

My parents are extremely frugal people, and from them I learned the following fiscal habits:

1. Money goes into the bank to die (that is, once you put money in you never take it out...for any reason).

2. Live on a budget.

3. Don't go into debt for anything other than a house if you can in any way possibly help it.

4. Just don't buy shit because if you do you will feel an extreme amount of guilt that will make the purchasing of items a complete emotional misery.

So you see I am not a shopaholic. I more or less abhor shopping for anything other than books, and even when I buy books I either go to Half-Price Books or buy them used online.

In addition to being freaky frugal, I have also become increasingly insistent on doing the reduce, reuse, recycle thing.

What got me thinking about my shopping habits or lack of shopping habits is my utter love of children's consignment sales. I don't like to shop, but if I have to do it, I do get some nice jollies from saving money.

A friend of mine, who is preparing to sell some of her children's items in a local consignment sale, let me "shop" at her house today. I picked up a crib, mattress, Thomas the Train ride-on, 4 pairs of pants, 3 shirts, 2 coats, 6 pairs of pajamas, a sweater and a Reebok warm-up suit (all for G except the crib/mattress). The clothes set me back a whopping $36. And the Thomas ride-on I'm selling to my mother so she can give it to G for his birthday.

Next week, I will be hitting the consignment sale to find N a new winter coat and buy some neutral newborn sleepers for mystery baby.

I love to browse in boutiques but I just laugh whenever I see the prices because the idea of me spending $25 on a shirt for my kid is downright absurd (even if I'm going to pass it along to every child I have). And by this, I don't mean that I wouldn't love to sometimes do this because dagonit, those boutique clothes are super cute.

But spending that much money on an item of clothing for my child violates some deep family code of frugality; basically, I'd have to go to Catholic confession and sever an arm in penance to make up for any such purchase.

I must confess that I do tend to buy N "new" clothes, but they are always at crazy low prices. When we were in Gulf Shores, AL in May I bought her a bunch of fall stuff from The Children's Place Outlet and Gymboree Outlet....none of which cost over $4.99. And I've picked up some long-sleeve shirts from Old Navy and The Disney Store for $3.00. I figure everything I buy for N gets passed down to my 3-year-old niece, and then will either get passed down to my newborn niece and/or my baby if it is a girl. G gets hand-me-downs from my nephews when available or gets consignment stuff.

Usually I buy my own clothes new, but on sale. I discovered though, during that brief period of time when I had lost my pregnancy weight from carrying G but wasn't yet pregnant with this baby, that I will forever buy my jeans at Plato's Closet. I am uber -picky about jeans, and I quickly learned that consigned jeans are ALREADY FRICKIN BROKEN IN. They feel like jeans that have been worn a zillion times because they are jeans that have been worn a zillion times.....just the way I like for them to feel. And I don't have to do that crazy pulling-at-my-crotch stretch dance every time I put them on after washing.

I remember one night at bunco a friend showed us some dresses she had purchased from a number of stores in the Mall, including White House, Black Market and Ann Taylor Loft, for a wedding she was going to attend. God, they were fabulous. I wished that I could buy something like that.

But what I do whenever someone is going to be married. I think to myself, "No one is gonna be paying a lick of attention to what I'm wearing, and I don't want to spend money on a dress I'm gonna wear like 1 or 2 times." Because I am the most "come as you are" dresser on the planet. Especially now when only 1 pair of pants I own actually feels halfway decent around my midsection. I have cleaned up nice 3 times in my life--my own wedding, my brother's wedding, and a friend's wedding when I was a bridesmaid. I live for comfort. I wear my clothes enough days in a row that they can walk themselves to the hamper.

So there's just no point in me spending more than a buck fifty on anything....