Just Heather

My poor baby is sick. She spiked a fever last night and puked all over me. I don’t handle that well when I’m not pregnant. She slept with me last night so I could keep an eye on her and keep her fever down all night. I had no idea she was a sleep talker. She’s a light sleeper and prefers to be shut in her room all alone to sleep. This is the first time she’s really been sick, aside from numerous infant ear infections that we discovered were caused by allergies.

I think she may well be my worst patient ever—which says a lot considering the big baby I’m married to. Stacia is content to sleep off any illness and not bother anyone. Brenia is cranky, whiny, and not so good at the “taking it easy” part. She did, however, have some rather comical things to say:

  • I’m not sick; I’m fever.
  • My sick is bye-bye now.
  • I’m tired of sick.

Baby is measuring full term as of today. My doctor is hoping she’ll stay in there for at least 3 more weeks since she isn’t actually full term just yet. As long as little bit doesn’t have other ideas, we will induce labor on November 8th. I like having it scheduled. It is so much easier to plan. I’ll have someone here overnight with the girls so when I go to the hospital first thing in the morning I don’t have to drag them along right away. My sister will bring them after breakfast.

There will be plenty of time to pack, load the car, and be sure the house is ready for baby’s homecoming. Being able to give the girls a date instead of a ambiguous “soon” is so much easier for transitional purposes. Her birthday will be marked on the calendar, and the true countdown will begin!

Maternity clothes suck. Nevermind the fact that they most often come in colors and designs more resembling a circus tent than any actual fashion. They don’t seem to be designed by anyone who has ever carried a child.

Supposedly, you buy your normal size in the maternity line. They are supposed to be made to grow with your belly. What these moronic—and obviously male—designers fail to take into account is the fact that your boobies and your ass grow in direct proportion to your belly. So you don’t tip over.

I find myself most often wearing hubby’s sweat pants with his t-shirts or the few maternity tops that will stretch across my ever-expanding chest. This is not incredibly flattering, but at least I’m comfortable.

Five more weeks. Then I can go back to my regular clothes—at least the ones that will stretch across the milk jugs.

If only our children were so well behaved. I just walked in to find the dog still as can be, poised over some food the girls had abandoned on the floor. Since it’s one less thing for me to bend over and pickup, I told him to go for it. He promptly gobbled it up with —I swear—a smile on his face.

I’m just wondering exactly how it occured to him to stand there and wait for permission. It’s certainly not the norm among the human children around here.

I have a safe haven. A place to hide escape when the house is crazy, my head is pounding, and my every thought is threatening to explode in screams. There is silence—well, muffled noise outside the bathroom door. There is no one hanging on my legs. No one sits on my lap. I’m not asked to find something I don’t own, fix something I didn’t break, or turn on something I don’t want to hear. When they realize I’m “missing,” the inevitable search begins. Mom? Mom? Mom, where are you?! When the panic sets in, it’s time to reveal my position.

It’s not often I get to go there. I rarely make it my throne alone. When I do manage to get into the bathroom all by myself, I lock the door and stay way longer than necessary. Luckily for me, current circumstances allow the opportunity for escape quite frequently. I think all mother’s need a safe haven of some sort. It’s not a retreat, by any means. We are often doing something that we would have to do anyway, but the blessed minutes of peace make the chore a bit more tolerable. When we were kids, the sibs and I could never figure out why Mom wouldn’t answer us when she was in the laundry room. I get it now, Mom. Luckily for her, 4 kids produced lots of laundry.

I will admit to being part-geek, though I don’t come close to my Super!Geek husband. I’m pretty sure the Countdown to Serenity in my head coupled with my intense love of Star Wars—and the fact that I own a $200 lightsaber—qualifies me as half-geek. Our poor kids didn’t have a chance. Need proof, as all good geeks do?

We watched this really funny movie. It was rated E for Everyone!” ~Stacia

I think it should be completely illegal to get sick when you are already pregnant. It’s just plain not fair to have tons of shit to deal with for 9 months straight and still get the nastiest cold ever! I woke up Sunday morning feeling completely clogged and scratchy. Now a fever has replaced my voice. There’s just too much to do for me to be napping all day. Not to mention a toddler who wouldn’t allow it anyway.

I think I am mostly prepared as far as stuff goes. I’ve sure spent a lot of money. Serenity was a big key—and the biggest expense—in going from 2 to 3 children. I least I’m no longer stressing over how to get my baby home from the hospital with her big sisters.

She has no room to come home to, but even if that didn’t get done it wouldn’t be a big deal. It’s not like she’ll really use it at first anyway. I’ll nurse so a cradle right next to me is so much easier than getting up every hour or two and walking across the house. I wanted it done by the end of this month, even though I’m not due for 7 or 8 weeks, to help the girls get used to the transition. Right now the “nursery” is a combination office/storage room/battleground or something like that.

I had hoped to get some work done on it yesterday. And by that I meant I’d sit on the bed and tell him where to put things. Instead I camped out on the couch right after Stacia’s soccer game until someone mentioned dinner. After which, I promptly returned to my horizontal position. We only have 1 soccer game this weekend so maybe something will get done then. In the meantime, I’ll lay around, do nothing, and whine about how nothing is getting done. It seems to be working well for me.

Maybe it will give me some time to surf around and find my Mixmania sender. I received an interesting mix. It fits well with the driving theme considering the name I chose for my new vehicle. It’s all classical and operatic—very serene.

This mix forces me to—once again—admit my musical ineptitude. I don’t know a single song on it. That should make tracking down its originator a bit difficult, though I’m guessing not many people went classical. I’m looking forward to finding the track list. I used to listen solely to classical on study days in college. It was the only way to focus on what I was doing. Lyrics were too distracting and silence only allowed dorm sounds in. In my daily life now, I rarely have cause to focus in the same way so I’ve not listened to much classical since Brenia would only fall asleep to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sendada.

Both girls love to make liars out of me, and apparently this one wants to join in the fun. As soon as I revealed her position to the world (okay, the 3 of you who read this), she just had to move. Not that it’s a bad thing. Last night things just felt funny the way she kept shifting and turning. I think she’s sitting straight now, though I’m hopeful she’s headed the right direction. I can feel her pummeling me along the center of my stomach now, rather than across the way she’s been doing for months. I used to be able to feel her hands using me as a punching bag on one side and her soccer kick on the other.

Of course, this will present new problems. I haven’t had my asthma difficulties with this pregnancy, and now I have figured out that it is because she was not near my lungs. Well, she’s now firmly planted between them so I can enjoy the breathing problems I have endured in the past. Doc will check in two weeks to determine if it’s her head or legs keeping me from inhaling oxygen. A few weeks after that, we’ll have our final ultrasound to schedule her birthday.

I’ll just keep my fingers crossed this move isn’t in anticipation of an early arrival. I would love to not be pregnant anymore, but I would also love to have a full grown, healthy baby. Besides, her room is not even close to ready yet.