This, That, the Other, and a few Little Thoughts

I haven't really been hanging around the blogosphere lately.  I think I have writer's block, which is ironic, because I'm not a writer...hah!  This blog is just for fun =).  Anyway, I just don't have much to post about these days.  We've been enjoying the extremely lazy days of summer, because it's just too darn hot to do anything else!  Even the cows just lay around in the shade and do nothing (although, they pretty much do that year round, so that's not saying much).  We spent the better part of today lounging around the house reading books.  I heard a fellow southerner say once that summer in the deep south is like winter in the far north, because you are almost quarantined inside because of the heat.  The temperature right now is 96 degrees, with a heat index of 107 degrees!  Way too hot to take kids outside to play.  I was out there for about 45 minutes cleaning out my van (oh yes, Phil, I actually got around to doing that ;), and I felt like I dropped 10 pounds just from the sweat...and, I was in the shade!  We did get to go swimming yesterday evening for a couple of hours at our neighbor's house, which was so very nice, but after a while, it actually felt like bath water...the temp in the water was 91 degrees O_o.

Next week, I go in for my second ultra-sound, and it's the one where we get the option to find out if the baby is a boy or a girl.  For the first 3, we didn't find out the gender, but Philip wants to for this one.  As for me, I don't know if I want to or not.  I usually am really tempted to find out, but since Phil has always wanted to be surprised, I never did, because I can't keep a secret.  Part of me feels like it's cheating, but in the end, it doesn't really matter...I mean, the baby is what it is, and I'll love him or her no matter what.  Likely, I'll break down and find out, because I'm just weak like that =)  At lunch today, the kids and I had this discussion:

Natalie:   So, Mom, I've been thinking...

Me:  oh yeah?  About what?

Natalie:  About the new baby.

Me:  What about the new baby?

Natalie:  Oh, just about having it and stuff.

Me:  It's going to be really exciting!  You'll get to hold it, and help me take care of it...(I left out the part about how I have anxiety attacks and fret think about having it and stuff, too).

Natalie:  I bet the baby gets hungry alot.

Me:  No, not really...babies get everything they need when they are in their mommy's tummy; they don't have to wait around for someone to feed them.

**I then tiptoe on egg shells trying to answer all her questions about how a pregnant woman's body works to take care of a growing baby...she's only 5, not a doctor!!  how many details does the child really need???  I settled on "that's just how God made it work", and changed the subject.  I told her that we get to go and see pictures of the baby at the doctor's office next week.

Me:  Do you want to find out if it's a boy or a girl now, or do you want to wait until it's born?

Natalie:  I want to know now!  (no shocker...she is my daughter)

Me:  Ok, maybe they'll be able to tell us.

Natalie:  Do you want to know?
Me:  I don't know yet...probably...Daddy wants to know.

**Andrew decides to join the conversation now, which is weird, because he seems to have been ignoring our entire conversation, because he's been very intent on eating his lunch for the duration of our little chat...every now and then he would pipe in with "hey, I got two noodles on my fork this time!!  cool!!"  Such a boy!

Andrew:  I want to wait.

Me:  You want to wait for the baby to be born before you know if it's a boy or a girl??

Andrew:  Yes, I want to wait.  The boys have to wait, but the girls can find out.

**Sorry Phil...I guess you have to wait with Andrew this time =P 

Now that everyone is just dying to know whether we find out or not, and, if we do find out, what the gender actually is...I shall not be posting it on the blog.  I remember my mother-in-law telling me once that if we ever find out, she doesn't want to know.  Since she actually reads my blog, I don't want to ruin the surprise for her.  So, everyone else will just have to wait for the ending =)  The hard part will be keeping Natalie away from her Grandma for the rest of the pregnancy, because there's no way she'll keep that a secret!  No, seriously, I'll make sure to drill Natalie about NOT telling Grandma, so no worries!  

Other than that, we haven't really been doing much of anything over here.  My garden is between the summer harvest and the fall planting, so I haven't been doing much with it.  I still have a couple of cherry tomato plants that are going strong, a handful of new cucumber plants that are a few weeks along, and my okra is like the gift that keeps on giving.  Phil did help me clean it out and do some weeding around the beds, so it looks much neater and is ready for the next round of planting.  Hopefully I can get to that in the next week or two.  

We'll be starting school right about the second week of August.  I've actually decided to switch to a new curriculum this year.  Natalie will be in first grade, and she's my only one in school just yet, so I figure now is the time to tweak out these things before we get so far along that it's harder to switch curricula around.  Since we attend the Traditional Latin Mass, Phil and I really wanted a curriculum that supports that.  So, I did a bit of research earlier in the summer and found Our Lady of the Rosary School.  I hope we like it.  From what I've looked at on the website, I like the books, the curriculum looks solid, I like the classes they offer for older kids, and I called and spoke with someone from their office, and she was very helpful and nice.  So, I'll be ordering the first grade supplies sometime next week, and getting some of Natalie's other school supplies tomorrow, when I get to go shopping all by myself!!!!  Well, Rachel will be with me, but she can't ask me to buy everything in the store yet, so I don't mind taking her =)  

Well, the kids just woke up and wandered in from their nap, so that means it's time for me to feed them again. 

Anyone Else Awake??

How come no one ever warns you about the 'real joys' of pregnancy?  Like, pregnancy insomnia, for example.  It hits right around the second trimester, and lasts pretty much throughout the entire second trimester.  I guess it comes from sleeping so much the first trimester, because of the unbearable exhaustion!  Wow, does that always hit me like a ton of bricks.  I literally can.not.stay.awake during the first 3 months.  And, all this lack of sleep in the second trimester will lead me to be a hibernating bear in the third trimester (where the kids and husband know better than to dare awaken said bear ;).  

So, anyway, it's almost midnight, and everyone in the house is asleep...except me.  Even the baby is sleeping; or at least being very still for the moment.  I'm sure once I lay down, it will be more than happy to start bouncing around again =)  On the plus side, all this extra energy has done wonders for my housekeeping/home organization skills!  I actually made a binder full of schedules, planners, meal plans, chore lists, and the list goes on and on, for the upcoming school year.  If you actually know me very well, you would probably cry from laughing so hard at this.  But, the laundry has not piled up, the floors are clean, and Phil has come home to clean dishes for more than 1 day in a row for almost a week now!  It's great!  I hope he enjoys it while it lasts, because it will be gone just as quickly as it came.  I think my nesting phase kicks in around this time, because come the last 2 months or so of being pregnant, I just want to pass out from thinking about putting a cup in the dishwasher.  

I am actually extremely blessed to have easy pregnancies ('easy' is a relative term, here), with no problems or complications.  And, I am definitely thankful for that fact, and the fact that God has given me the gift of motherhood at all, for that matter.  But, the reality is, the things that mean the most in life, and bring us the most peace and joy...it is those things that also require the most sacrifice.  And, it's a sacrifice I am more than willing to make, but sometimes those sacrifices are so not fun....

Good Night!  (maybe...)

"I think being a good father is keeping the mother happy, so she doesn't drive the kids crazy." 

New Baby

Well, we finally got to see the new baby!  My husband met me at the doctor's office yesterday morning, and we all got to see little Baby #4 kicking around on the ultrasound machine.  Technology can be scary at times, but so amazing nonetheless.  Anyway, everything checked out great, and Natalie was beyond giddy with excitement.  I'm not sure if Andrew really gets what is going on, but I think he'll catch on when we come home with another sibling for him to play pirates with =)  After we left the ultrasound room he said "Mom, what do you have in your tummy?"  I told him a baby and then he asked if he could see it O_o  Rachel was not keen on the ultrasound at all...she was not happy about the nurse messing with me, or with the fact that she had to stay with Dad instead of Mom.  She'll be in for a rude awakening when the new baby takes its place as youngest of the family!  On the plus side, she is finally starting to make progress with the walking!!  The girl is a few weeks shy of 18 months old...it's time!  Anyway, here are a few pics of the new baby and my pregnant self; I am trying to keep up a pregnancy photo journal (we'll see if it lasts), and my goal is to take a picture every time I have a doctor's appointment....I've actually not done this for any previous pregnancies, but seeing as I am the youngest of 4 kids, and I completely got the shaft when it came to photo albums, I refuse to do that to kids that show up later in our family.  My oldest brother and my two older sisters all have these big, thick photo albums bursting to the seams with pictures...mine is easily a quarter of the size of theirs, and it is only half full.  Feel the love!  Anyway...not the point of this post...

this was on the day of my first doctor's appointment, about a week ago:

this is the afternoon of my ultrasound, yesterday (a week after the first visit)

(and, I'm going to have to make sure I stand the same direction for future pictures!  I have this weird symmetry thing...it bothers me that I'm not facing the same direction in both pictures!!!....):

The Baby!!

This one is just for good measure...I take the kids to weekly story time at our small town library.  If you've never been to a small town library, go now!  They are the best!  The librarians are the sweetest ladies you'll ever meet, and they are always taking pictures of my kids, and then printing them out for me...how sweet is that?!  The sad part is that it is a library rule that they can't accept gifts from library patrons...what is that about???  How am I suppose to show my gratitude.  Anyway, they gave me this one a few days ago, and I just LOVE it...I sent it with Phil to work, so I had to get a copy of it before I parted with it.  Unfortunately my scanner is not working (because my color ink cartridge is out...did I ask the thing to print?!  no, I don't think so!), so I just took a picture of it with my camera =) 

And, finally, here is a video of little Miss Rachel learning to walk!  She's only been doing this for the last couple of days (note:  I don't have videos of the other kids walking...see??  no shafting the younger kids on memories like my family did to me - no bitterness, though ;):

Oh, and please excuse all the tangents...you can blame it on the pregnancy brain =)

A Little Something New

Ok, I just can't keep it a secret any longer!  We are having another baby!!!  This will be number four for us, and I had my first check up today.  And, first check up means that I got to hear the baby's heart beat!  I don't know what it is about hearing your child's heart beat for the first time, but it's an experience and a sound that stays in a mother's heart forever!  It's almost surreal...any fears or concerns or anxieties about being pregnant (because those come with all the happy emotions, too) just kind of disappear when you realize you have a little, tiny life inside you!  It's one of my favorite sounds in the world =)  Our official due date is Christmas Day, which just adds another level of excitement on top of everything.  I'm also VERY nervous about having 4 children.  Their ages will be 6, 4, 2, and newest, so it's a bit intimidating.  But, many families have done this tons of time, so I'm sure all will be well once the fear of the unknown subsides.  The doctor said I'm about 12 weeks and 5 days, which means I'm actually 2 1/2 months along.  I'm not sure why, but doctors like to make you go until you are 40 weeks, which is actually 10 months, instead of 9.  They actually count weeks that you aren't even pregnant!  What the heck is that about?  I've never understood that conundrum!  Nine months is long enough, why do doctors insist on torturing women by adding extra weeks?!?!  Whatever the case may be, I've got a long way to go!  

The fun part, though, was telling the kids that we would be having a new baby.  All Andrew said was "I want a boy baby."  And, he hasn't mentioned anything about the baby since...this was almost a month ago.  I don't think he even remembers.  Natalie didn't believe me at first.  She thought I was joking.  When I finally convinced her that I was, in fact, pregnant, she demanded to know how I knew.  "How can you tell?"  "When I'm married, how will I know when I'm pregnant?"  After a mild heart-attack at the idea of my little girl being married and having babies of her own, I told her not to worry about that until she was old enough to be married!  Then she did a lot of giggling.  Then she got worried that the baby would get cold in my belly.  And worried about how it would get food, and what if it drowned, or got blood all over it, because "don't we have blood in our bodies..what if it gets on the baby?"  The conversation quickly got out of hand, so I switched to names, and if we wanted a boy or a girl!  Oh my gosh!  How did my five-year-old get so curious about these things?!  It was cute, and funny, but I had no idea what to tell her.  I think I mumbled something about telling her when she was older, and right now all we had to think about was how much fun it would be to hold the baby and take care of it.  

I wish I had a cute little ultrasound picture to share, but I'm not scheduled to have my first one until next week, so it will have to wait.  In fact, Natalie was devastated because I had told her that we were going to get to see a picture of the baby today, and when the nurse told us the doctor wasn't doing an ultrasound, I think it just about broke her heart!  I should have known better than telling her something like that without being 100% positive!  Oh well...good things come to those who wait.  Next week I should have new baby pics!!!  

Yay for new life!