Why women are so forgetful late in their pregnancy.  This way we forget what it was like to be this pregnant, and willingly do it again.  It is one of those survival of the species things.  Because otherwise…yeah everyone would just have one, and then say what do THAT again…oh hell no.  But since really pregnant don’t sleep, are preoccupied with all the random shit that has to be done before the baby (no really it would be nice if that fence were painted… the baby totally is going to care, they probably won’t let me leave the hospital until it is done) and are just plain forgetful, getting pregnant again seems like a brilliant idea.   I like my brothers and sisters, why shouldn’t Ben get one of his own.

(disclaimer:  I am totally excited about this baby, boy or girl?  big or little?  sleeper or… oh God let it be a sleeper…and wouldn’t change anything, except maybe requesting a coma that set in like 2 weeks ago)

(oh and even though I had contractions for like 2 hours on Thursday night, and we were packing bags and gathering phone numbers, only to go to sleep later, there was NO change to report when we went to the Dr on Friday….arg…but everything is looking healthy and good!)

doesn’t equal 9 months, but who am I to count.  I am sitting solidly at 37 weeks these days, and things are coming together nicely.  Which means I am ready.  Turns out the Dr is ready too.  She told us that most second kids are larger than first ones.   Both she and I are in agreement that Ben’s 10 lbs 4 oz is too big for another kid to try and top.  So if I decide not to have this kid before the 20th of May we will kick start this party.  Or induce labor at 6:45am, you know pretty close to the same…. labor… party… We still don’t have a middle name for a boy picked out so throw them at us folks.

I have 5 days of work left.  And probably 2 weeks of work to finish in that time.  I hope to get most of what I need done done… but I can only do what I can.   Just thinking about work makes me tired and stressed.  Not because I don’t like it, just ’cause.

I spent today cleaning random places in the living room and kitchen.  And dealing with my lovely 2 year old.  He was in rare I AM TWO form today.  It was brilliant,  and I only did a small jig when he went down for a nap, and another… medium one when D came home.  So the dishes aren’t done, but the top of the fridge is clean, and so is the catch all area by the front door…. Oh and I dusted.

So this is your random update for the day.  I go to the dr tomorrow, I will try and post if we find out anything astonishing!  For now I off to put these sausages I call toes and feet and ankles up, and hope D brought home something chocolate or at least sweet.

Just now I was sitting here at work catching up on blog reading, and eating a cranberry muffin.  I looked down at the keyboard and saw there was a little crumb, picked it up and ate it.  Then I thought, wow that would have been gross if that were some mystery crumb and not part of the muffin. (Luckily it wasn’t)  But it made me remember an off the wall story about my brother-in-law.  Ahhh funny wacky ol Matt.  He makes me laugh, and he is cool, partly because he is married to my sister, and father of sweet Elly Belly, but also just ’cause.  So the way my sister tells it, she, Matt and Ella were out to eat and at one point Ella dropped something on the floor.  When Chrissy bent down to pick up the dropped item, she also snagged a piece of mystery food and set it on the edge of her finished plate.  Matt not realizing what it was a few minutes later picked it up and ate it.  Pretty gross I know, but for whatever reason it continuously cracks me up whenever I remember it.  Maybe because it is a totally ‘Matt’ thing to do,  I don’t know, it is just funny.  Or just funny to me.

And so here is to random story day.  Got any good ones?

from my seeestar.

finish the sentence.

maybe i should figure out a name for this kid in case it is a boy.
i love the smell of rain and babies.  (not necessarily at the same time)
people would say that sometimes when I am pregnant, or not, I am not very patient.
i don’t understand why what people think bothers me.
i lost the ability to see my toes a while ago.
my past is behind me.

i get annoyed every morning at the neighbors damn dogs.

my idea of a good time watching D and Ben laugh together.
i wish I was asleep right now.

Twins are cute when they are someone else’s.
Spring makes me sneeze.
tomorrow i’m going to play outside with Ben if it isn’t raining.
i have low tolerance for whining or needlessly negative people.
i’m totally terrified of not being able to have D at this baby’s delivery.
i wonder why Ben couldn’t have waited until the end of summer to learn how to climb over the fence.
never in my life have I smoked.
high school was pretty cool, I had fun most of the time it wasn’t sucking.
when i’m nervous my neck and chest turn red.
one time at a family gathering I got in a fight with my sister.  (Wha…which time?)
take my advice: Suck it up and drive on.  (I am tired)
Kids make me happy.
i’m almost always behind on my dishes.  (Erin says really? hum.)
i’m addicted to checking my email and Target.
i want someone to give me a foot rub.

…planning for maternity leave takes work.

…preregistering at the hospital is suprisingly easy, and when you actually see the bracelets you will be wearing when you birth a child, it makes things seem a lot closer than you thought they were.

…when you don’t have a mattress in the baby’s crib, the nursery doesn’t seem ready, even if you have clean clothes folded neatly in drawers.

…nice weather means much more sand in the bath tub. And earlier bedtimes as throwing all that dirt makes ya tired.

…even though you know you are big at 8+ months pregnant, you are also sensitive. So when people say… wow you are REALLY big, ya still kinda want to punch them in the face.

…not having wireless internet at home lends to being really behind in posting.

…when you never upload pics off the camera, it makes it really hard to post them to let every one see your wonderfully adorable monkey of a child.

…it makes me nervous to not be close to having boy names picked out. Girl names, we have 3, and they are secret, thanks. I hate that before you name your child EVERYONE can tell you what they think. I have a hard enough time making up my mind I don’t need your input to name my child. No offense.

…D just got a paying internship. It will change our summer, but is an awesome opportunity, so we are excited!

…long lost family can turn out pretty cool. Hell, finding out you have long lost family is cool in itself, but when they turn out to be great people, it is even cooler!

Every night goes pretty much the same way in our house.  Usually a bath, followed by much giggling and tickling as we are getting dressed.  We pick out 2-3 books to read, and have to sit right in the middle of daddy’s or mommy’s lap (getting harder to do in my case) and put the feet up on the recliner.  Then we read the books, talk about the pictures and work on calming down and snuggling up.  Most of the time about half way through the first book, Ben decides he needs a snack, and decides between yogurt, applesauce, or strawberries.  Whoever isn’t reading prepares the prince’s food, and sits down next to the readers to help move the snack along.  After reading and discussing is done, we snuggle up and sing songs.  Usually it is the ABC’s which go something like this:

Mom: A

Ben: B

Mom: C

Ben: C

Mom: D

Ben: D

Mom: E

Ben: E

Mom: F

Ben: E

Mom: G

Ben: E

and so on until we hit about S, then we may get a few letters in from Ben that aren’t E’s… but probably not.

Then on to the next song, which is usually Row Row Row Your Boat.  Which is sort of a round, where Mom starts, and Ben follows by singing, Yo-Yo, Yo-Yo, Yo-Yo, giggle, giggle, Yo-Yo, Yo-Yo.

And every night it is hilarious to me.

Ben has this pretend game where he cups his hand over his ear, and talks on the phone.  Most of the time he needs privacy for these telephone calls, although everyonce and a while he will take on in the car where he can’t get away from his parents.  Last night during supper he had to take a very important phone call.

D:  Hey Ben do you want more milk?

Ben: feialvu ehia vbifeal virs vhbio (pause)  giggle giggle giggle, yeah uh huh, yep (pause)

D: Looks like we are going to have to ban phone calls at the dinner table (pause)  didn’t think I was going to have to have this conversation for ohhhh 14 more years.

Me:  Ben, could you do us a favor and give them a call back, we are in the middle of dinner.

Ben: (glancing up at mom)  yeah, yeah, ummmmmmmm no, ejiaugh, aheiub, bhasmc, coe,  uh huh, ummmmm no, Bye!

Me:  Well at least he can take that call after we are done.

Well here comes this weeks update:

-I passed my gestational diabetes test last Friday with flying colors, or just low blood sugar scores!  So now we just wait and see if this baby turns out to be just plain big like Ben was.  I can’t believe I am in the third trimester already.  I know it isn’t news that this whole thing has been going fast, but hey it has been ok!

- Birthday party went swimmingly on Sunday!  Had most of our immediate family there, we missed my sister and her family, and my dad, but besides that having all the family there to celebrate the newest 2 year old was great.  I will work on posting some pics and maybe a video or two later.  My mom and I made some interesting Elmo cupcakes, but hey Ben knew who they were, so that is all that matters!  Ben got lots of fun toys including this awesome toy.  This is by far our favorite, as it is like D’s motorcycle so he and dad can go out riding.  We had great weather and folks ended up staying until around 8pm(which may not seem like a big deal, but most everyone had to travel at least an hour and a half so it was very neat they could and wanted to stick around!).  Very very fun!

- Work is good, very very busy.  I am going to try to take all next week off!  I already told D that if I do, he is going to have to hide the comp, or steal the wireless router so I can’t check email from home.  Today I ended up spending Ben’s entire nap working from home.  It is a compulsion, and I don’t actually know what will happen if I don’t check my email for an entire week!  Stay tuned.

-The crib is in!  I am pretty excited to get it, although I am not sure when that will happen.  The storage for the stuff we have in what will be the nursery is almost done.  We are talking things like only needs a door knob and some sweeping, almost done.  So the one billion bins of stuff can start moving!  I seem to be nesting a lot earlier with this one than I did with Ben.  Almost every day I think of something I want to reorganize or go through that will make things neater and easier once the baby arrives.  Having an actual space for the baby will help, I hope… Or I will just have to keep on cleaning!  Worse things have happened.

Seems more clear this year than it did last.  And since I am getting close to doing the whole thing again I thought I would take the time to write down the events of the day my sweet lovey boy decided to join us.

The Sunday two days before I was due with Ben I woke up with contractions around 7:30am.  I woke D up and told him what was happening.  We decided to time them for a bit before we called the Dr, and around 8 we did just that.  I was about 12 minutes apart and they felt like they meant business.  The Dr told us we could either come on in or wait to see how things progressed.  I was feeling pretty good, so we decided to wait.  Waiting meant me laying on the couch and D sitting across from me with his watch and a computer game.  I went to sleep and about every ten minutes for the next 4 hours I would wake up and say Now!, he would set his watch and wait until I went back to sleep.  It was all very much a blur, and I had no idea how long had passed until around noon the Dr called back and asked how things were going.  We gave him an update and he decided we should go on in.  Grabbing all the stuff we had ready to and some McD’s before we hit the hospital we were admitted around 12:30.  My parents and siblings were called and they all started the 3 hour trip to meet the new baby.  When we got to the hospital I was about 5 cm dialated, and my water had not broke.  I was most definitely contracting and so they decided to break my water to keep things moving.  About 2 hours later… Ben had changed his mind.  No more contractions, no more nothing.  Just a baby happy to be where he was.  (This is where I would have done things differently had this been not my first kid… but live and learn right?)  The decision was we needed to move this along, I was 7 cm dialated and we started the pictocin.  For the next 30 minutes I had one GIANT contraction.  I kept thinking to myself, if this is what the last part was going to be like, then bring on the epidural…Which I soon asked for.   It was swell, the nurse came in to check on me, and said…oh hum I must have set that too high, you shouldn’t be contracting this much without a break. (at which point I really wanted to punch her) I got the epidural, and for the next 2 hours I sat talking to my two brothers, sister in law, parents and D, not feeling anything.  The Dr came in to check on me, asking every one to leave, and then said in a surprised tone, get the nurses, we are doing this now! 15 minutes and about 4 big pushes later, I saw a tangle of legs and arms as D and the Dr were both telling me to open my eyes!!!  The Dr said, wow, he’s a monster! (not what you say when you first see a baby in front of a new mom)  He laid my sweet boy on my chest, and it was more than amazing.  When they took him to weigh him and clean him I learned that the monster referred to the 10 lbs 4 oz that my bundle weighed!  He was healthy, if not too happy, and I was amazed how fast things happened.  D went to get the family and they were all surprised that what they thought was a quick check, turned out to be Ben at 9:40pm!