Nesting time and Spring Time

Ahhh Nesting.

The birds do it. And now I do it. I woke up feeling sick (getting over some food related illness) but with this incredible yearning and desire to get my hands in the dirt, dust under beds and couches, do laundry, cook banana muffins, plant an obscene amount of seeds, do art projects with a 1 year old, and exercise my very large self all at the same time. And unfortunately at this time I am enormously huge and extremely uncomfortable (aka..I want to remove a few very sore ribs, maybe fractured from my huge belly). Enough about the bad. Let's get onto the good...

Nesting is grrrrrreat. It's like all that time you were lazy in your life is getting back at you now and you want to do everything you have been putting off right now!

So I was in my yard today, surveying the situation with a lopper (weird name for an amazing device) in hand and there are about 6 grown men working hard in the yard next door to me. And my little dear daughter Davy Marin, finding worms and leaves close by. So here I am, very very pregnant and I hear "HEY LOOK THERE'S A PREGNANT LADY." Ummm I was like 15 feet away. One of the workers apparently caught a glimpse of me out of his peripheral and was so amazed he forgot he wasn't at the zoo looking at a new exhibit. Apparently I am something to behold. Anyway I almost started laughing and then I looked and the other man he was talking to looked kind of awkwardly at me and did a little wave so I smiled and waved back like a good zoo animal.

I tried my darnedest to finish everything written on my kitchen chalkboard, but I eventually left my halfway torn apart yard to go on a never ending walk to my sister's house and now I am waiting to be picked up by my dear husband because my ankles are now an extension of my calves and I am rocking some awesome swollen cankles with a side serving of sausage feet. YES!

I love nesting and I love blogging. It is a good way to feel like I am talking to adults about the exciting life of stay at home mom.

Happy Spring and Happy Nesting!

How to Fail at Labor

So let's just say you had 5 or 6 weeks left of pregnancy, God willing, and you start feeling contractions. Not just sissy ones. Some that you can't sleep through. So you wake up at 2:00AM, hang out, listen to the screaming baby raccoons outside, surf the web for the very best baby bouncer that does not look like a 5 year old designed it, and count contractions. Then at 4:30AM you think that it's probably nothing, so you lay in bed with a constant cramping sensation around little kicking baby. Then you never sleep. Get out of bed in 15 minutes, tell your husband casually that you have been having contractions. Also, you were just diagnosed with a chronic health condition that puts you at a higher risk for premature delivery... Your doctor told you to call when they are 10 minutes apart for more than an hour and they are getting closer and stronger. Sooo just to be sure, you wait a few hours with the contractions closer than 10 minutes apart. Then they are 3-4 minutes apart and getting stronger. So you call Dr. Alarming (not his real name). He doesn't call back. 30 min. pass. 1 hour passes. hmmm maybe you should just go to the hospital? 90 minutes pass and you pull in, register, go to a strange place called triage and feel like a loser.

Then they ask 1,000,000 questions, check baby, check cervix, supposedly check contractions, incorrectly insert an IV (ouch), then re- do it in the other arm, have you use the restroom with a clear plastic cup in hand, and a few other things like strip down and keep trying to call your doctor.

Then after 4 hours, they say you can go, that your health condition probably is causing the contractions, your cervix isn't too open, and you might be dehydrated. Awesome.

Oh and your husband posted on Facebook to his close 1,000+ friends that it "looks like we are going to have the baby today, send me some names." ummmm. word of advice to the wise husband. DO NOT DO THAT. It sends people that hardly know you into a tizzy, and then it makes you look both like losers even more. G R E A T.

On a positive note, the baby's heart beat sounded good from what I could tell and I got to spend a lot of quality bonding time with my husband. Albeit I was a little uncomfortable and hooked up to an IV, contraction monitor and fetal heartbeat monitor with a band around my stomach, but it was still good.

Also, they tell you that they (your friends at the hospital) can measure how "bad or strong" your contractions are by their little device. I say that is a load of recalled lemon girl scout cookies. When I had my daughter, it seemed like my very worst contractions looked like tiny hills and when they weren't that bad they sometimes looked like mountains. This leads the nurses to believe that they can watch a monitor that looks like a seismograph and decipher when they can touch you. DO NOT DO THAT NURSE PEOPLE. Ask the woman first. I can't talk when I am in pain, which may make this difficult. But I could probably whisper.

Basically they use the same band for every size woman and depending on how big or not big you are will affect how much it registers pressure on the button thingy.

This is according to Dr. Spock--via http://www.drspock.com/article/0,1510,10602,00.html


The monitor's tocodynamometer, or toco for short, is a pressure-sensing device that can detect the changes in your abdomen as your uterus tightens during a contraction. It marks how often contractions occur and the length of each, producing a graph that looks like a series of hills rolling across the bottom of the printout. The external contraction monitor can't tell how strong a contraction is, since the size of the "hill" is affected by the tightness of the belt and if you are thin or heavy. If a precise measurement of the strength of the contraction is needed, an internal-pressure monitor can be placed inside the uterus.

I guess it is better to be safe than sorry with the whole going to the hospital at the wrong time thing, but it makes you feel like a FAIL. :(

I am very glad I have more time for this little muffin to stay in the oven.

Get That Child on a Leash!

Ever since I was a child, I have noticed a strange phenomenon of children on leashes. It has disturbed me greatly. I vowed that I would NEVER under any circumstance put MY child on a leash. Leashes are for animals. People just need to learn how to control their children. And if they can't, don't take them in public or put them in a stroller for crying out loud.

These were my sentiments toward child leashes up until I became larger and larger and slower and slower due to a new little life growing inside me. During this time, ironically, my 1 1/2 year old got faster and faster. (Her daddy was a Division 1 sprinter in college- thanks a lot life.) She's fast. It's almost shocking to me sometimes. She seriously sprints. She was an early walker and now at the tender age of almost 22 months she likes to go "fast." Basically I'm fat and slow and she is reckless and fast. Oh, and also she like a contortionist when she tries to escape from straps. It is very difficult to keep her in them. ie. strollers, car seats, and grocery carts.

So I have been looking at these backpack leashes somewhat longingly, yet still disturbed greatly by the idea of them. I liked a few that I saw that did not look so animalistic and like I wanted to call Child Protective Services when I saw a child with one.

However, many of them are boyish, so that was holding me back.

Anyway to make this very long leash story short...I was at Walmart yesterday for a few "necessities," and came across this little number.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Goldbug-2-in-1-Monkey-Child-Safety-Harness/4532497

So first I looked at it and casually said to my daughter..."Davy, look at this?!" She got a big smile and her face and said "Monkey!" (OK ,well it was more like "Monee!") I then put that child leash in the cart as fast as my little sprinter can run, before I could change my mind or think about it too much.

Then I went through the line, got in the car and opened it. I even had to use my teeth. I guess I didn't exactly have to use my teeth, although I did pretend for a second that I was on survivor or something. I was excited. I never thought the day would come when I would be clamoring to open a child leash and desperately using my teeth to bite through that heinous plastic. (Seriously, do people steal child leashes?)

Anyway, I really wanted to make a trip to Lowe's after Walmart and I thought this leash might just do the trick. So...I handed her the monkey so they could get acquainted while I drove down the street. By the time we got there, they seemed to be on good terms, so I took that little sprinting angel out of her car seat and told her. "WE ARE GOING TO PUT THE MONKEY ON YOUR BACK! YAY" It seemed to work and she smiled as I strapped that leash on her. Then I held her hand and the leash. (I had to ease myself into the child leashing thing.) I looked around cautiously, to make sure that no one was judging me. Some men looked at me. But it might just be because I look like I am dangerously close to having a baby and I was at a hardware store.

I had to buy some random hooks and things for hanging pictures on plaster walls and while I did this...I let go of my little pumpkin's hand and could use BOTH hands to look for things. Meanwhile she destroyed the organization system of chains and hooks below me. But I felt alright about it. She couldn't sprint away! Woohooo. Success my friends. Success.

So if you are one of those people who thinks leashes are cruel and strange and wrong, but then you have a child that makes you rethink your original ideology. Do not be afraid. I won't judge you (But let's be honest, everyone else probably is.)

Stay at Home Motherhood is LAME

Stay at home Motherhood is a very funny thing. Many moms say that they want it. Some say that they don't. Some do it forever and some can't or won't.

I always wanted to be a stay at home mom. However, sometimes it can be kind of tricky. Tricky as in your "friends" may mainly consist of children and dolls. Maybe not for everyone, but I found this to be the case after we relocated to a new city and didn't really know many people.

Also, at work, you have your own time to use as you please. With kiddies, life is a constant merry-go-round and sometimes you want to get off because you feel nauseous. But, I have found that if I just jump on a gaudy painted pony and hold on and close my eyes with my dear ones close, I have a much better time. The nausea almost always passes.

Things you never thought twice about before, now require new logistics. Showering soon becomes part of a to-do list. Diapers stay on the grocery list. Cars need to be safe and not just adult toys. Worrying may be first experienced in all of its glory. You sacrifice getting new things so that your daughter or son can.

Some women resent these things over time and crave their "own time" and "own things" and reminisce about the way things were before the kid(s). But soon those kids won't be kids anymore and they will miss their days of no freedom and sweet toothless smiles and tiny armed hugs. By some women I mean myself included. Sometimes I miss being able to run to the mall and actually shop rather than chase a wild toddler who is dangerously close to becoming leashed. But I try to savor these sweet days as much as I can.

So yes sometimes stay at home Motherhood may be lame to the outside world, but when you are there at least some of the time you get many little glimpses of beauty and love that you could never imagine.

So even though in the last few months more than a handful of people have either directly said or alluded to the fact that "I need a life" or my life is "lame." I think I'll savor this lameness as long as I can.