Bugging Out!

What is bugging me today? A lot actually. You know us women, we have to get our feelings out. Usually it is my husband's job to listen to my rant on and on about things like this. But he is not here. I am being crabby and have little patience with my girls. So, in a lame effort to expell the negative feelings I am having today, I will write them down here in hopes that I will get them out of my system.

1) Got little sleep last night. I am a person who just needs her sleep, and when I don't, I am grouchy. This is not good considering I will soon be getting very, very little when a newborn comes into our home. This is one thing I don't look forward to.
2) Being so fat and swollen. Every morning I wake up and look in the mirror and say, "Oh man, I think I'm bigger this morning than I was last night." This also just tends to make a woman grouchy.
3) A 2 1/2 year old daughter who has little to no interest in potty training. Oh, how I wish she'd be one of those kids that potty trained completely in one weekend.
4) People who say they are going to show up for something and just don't. I wait around for them, and nothing. This bugs me bad!
5) The Mexican (no offense honey) construction workers building the house next to us. They are there from sun up to sun down everyday. Sometimes even on Sundays. They blast their mexican music from their self made sound systems in their beater cars. They leave their lunch and drinks, and construction trash laying around and it blows over into my yard. Oh, how I love to wake up to seeing trash laying all over my front lawn, and then I have to go pick their nasty half eaten lunches up if I don't want to look at it. The other day I saw an almost all eaten rotissoure chicken left on the ground. YUMMY! These people are SLOBS!
6) (Extention of #5) These Mexican workers like to also drink water all day long from my spout on the side of my house. The worst part- they left the water running all night the other day. I found it running when I went to mow the yard. I am so fed up with these people. People in the neighborhood complain to the owners, but nothing happens. I think I will pick up the trash and throw it all over the lawn of the model home of our edition. Let's see if that gets the owners attention. What do you think? Too much?
7) I think I've lost my cell phone. So I can't talk with my mom or sisters. UGH!
8) I have to go to Walmart to do grocery shoping. I hate Walmart.
9) Money! People who have it, and people who don't. Money in general just bugs me!
10) The constant running list in my head of things to get done in the next 11 weeks before baby is here. It is so long, I won't bore you. But I get tired just thinking about it.

Aren't you happy you checked my blog today???

Glamorous Mommy Moment.

Want to know what is more fun than taking my 2 daughters with me to a 2 hour OBGYN appointment that I had to be at 8:00am this morning? When your 2 year old daughter, without warning, decides to throw up all over the waiting room and herself.
It was disguisting, embarrassing, and I'm sure the ladies staring at me through their tiny glass window were wondering, "Why the heck did you bring your sick child to the appointment with you?" In my defense, she was not sick, and has not been acting sick. I shewed both my girls into the bathroom and cleaned Bella up the best I could. Alyssa was freaking out the whole time saying, "Oh my gosh, this is a disaster!" Do you think she's heard that a time or two?
Once we were presentable again, I shewed them back into the OB office and went on with my appointment. Why you ask? Because I was there already. I wanted to get it over with. So once again, I pulled up my big girl panties and we got through it.
The positive things that came from this experience are that baby #3 is looking great. My doctor thinks I look great and that it is all in my head that I am too big. She says I measure just right. Hmmm....I think she's just being nice because I've already paid my bill in full for her services.
I had to run over to the lab and drink that nasty orange drink for the gestational diabetes test they do. Alyssa wanted some because she thought it was Sunkist pop. I would have been glad to share with her, however, there were people watching me.
Because the girls were with me, I had to smile and pretend not to be grossed out with the needle sitting in my arm to draw my blood. UGH! I hate needles. Alyssa informed me after today that she is never having children. Little does she know it gets a lot worse than what she saw today.
We all made it home and Bella is acting tired, but hungry now. We will see how she feels throughout the day.

A day in my life.

I awoke this morning to the usual sights, smells, and noises. I got a real treat and the girls allowed me to sleep in until 7:15am this morning. Alyssa was standing beside my bed, handing me my glasses and asking me to get up and turn the TV to her morning cartoons channel. I can hear Bella in her bedroom over the monitor yelling "momma, momma, momma." This is her usual way of letting me know she is awake and I need to come get her out of bed. I rub my eyes, take my glasses from my daughter's hand, roll my pregnant body out of bed, and walk slowy towards the living room. I turn on the cartoons for Alyssa. I continue towards Bella's bedroom and I see her standing at her crib with her pacifier in her mouth, and her blanket in her hand. She is happy to see me and reaches for me to pick her up. This makes me smile and wakes me up just a little more. Like every morning, she smells like a pee-pee diaper. When I'm really lucky, she has gone poop as well. There is nothing like waking up to changing a stinky poopy diaper. This is one of my all time least favorite things to do first thing in the morning. I clean her up and take her to the kitchen and start her breakfast. Like most things, Alyssa and Bella are very different in when they like to eat their breakfast. Bella goes straight for the kitchen and lets me know she is hungry as soon as she gets up. Alyssa likes to lay on the couch and watch a couple of cartoons before she is hungry and ready to eat. I am aware I will need to start working on a better morning routine for her this summer to ready her for eating before leaving for school everyday. Add that to my long and always running list in my brain. Check.
While girls are eating breakfast and watching cartoons, I go around the house making beds, starting laundry, a lot of times I will grab a shower. Something I've mastered as a mother is learning how to cut down on my time getting ready for the day. Unless it is needful, I only wash my hair every other day. This cuts a ot of time in washing and drying my hair, not to mention it saves me money on shampoo and conditioner. I don't wear much makeup these days. Just the basics to make sure I can look myself in the mirror. One bonus to staying at home everyday with kids is that they really don't care if you spend 15 minutes putting the perfect eyeliner/eyeshadow combo together, or what shade of lipgloss you choose to wear. The options in my closet to wear are limited these days thanks to all my growing body parts. This third pregnancy has been damaging to my physical appearance. I think I started getting larger the second after she was conceived.
My girls like to bath in the mornings. They love to bath together. This is great fun, however, a HUGE water and bubble mess for mom to clean up every morning. I sacrifice the mess for their happiness. Check. The girls splash and play and giggle, and complain when I tell them it is time for us to wash and get out. Thank goodness for a huge tub in my master bathroom now. It has saved my back in so many ways. But still with a growing belly, bathing the girls is getting harder. I corral the girls into their bedroom for dressing and then to the bathroom for lotion, teeth brushing, extracting of buggers in their noses, and combing and styling their hair. This is no small task as other mothers of little girls know. Doing their hair can be such a chore. Once again, the girls are different in this as well. Alyssa actual likes to have her hair cut, combed, dryed, curled, and played with. Bella could live without it. She cries everytime I've had her hair trimmed. She moves all over the place and whines when I try to do anything with her hair. I really don't know why I work so hard to get their hair looking cute, when 30 minutes after they are ready for the day, their bows are out and their hair looks like I never did it. Oh, but how cute it is for that 30 minutes right!?
Play time now. With girls it is always about dress up, makeup, tea parties, and pretending to run their kitchen cafe out of their play kitchen in their room. Most days the girls play really well together. Of course they have their times when they argue over this and that. They taddle on the other one for touching this or doing that. But, today. Awww...today for awhile they were running around playing and giggling and enjoying eachother so much. I sat in my rocking chair and watched them awhile as they played tag with this little stuffed bear. It was so funny and sweet it almost made me cry. I'm sure part because it was sweet, but part because of my raging hormones I've got going.
The day goes by so fast between running errands like: going to doctors appointments, grocery shopping, taking them to gymnastics class, and on playdates with friends. By the time lunch and naps role around, I am exhausted!
Being pregnant with my 3rd child, while I'm out and about I often wonder what and how I will be able to do these kinds of things again after this baby comes? Will I be a prisoner in my home? I keep waiting and hoping for a third arm to grow or for someone to come and surprise me with a daytime nanny to help assist me with the everyday things I need to get done with three girls in tow. But that won't be happening, so that is when it is time to do what is a long standing saying in my family, "Get my big girl panties on and get to work!" That is what mom's do right?
The girls are finally napping and the house is quiet. That is when I have to kick myself into 5th gear. I have laundry, cleaning, phone calls, and of course a ton of insurance billing that calls my name from my home office. Since this will someday be printed and bound for my children and my chidren's children to read, I must be honest in my documenting. I have to admit that since I've been pregnant, my 5th gear has kind of turned into 3rd gear. I still do what NEEDS to be done. But lack to motivation to do anything above and beyond that.
I really don't mean to keep using this pregnancy as an excuse for me being fat (sorry Alyssa, I meant to say unhealthy) and lazy. I've never been that kind of pregnant woman. I've always loved being pregnant and have never really minded the growing belly. But this 3rd time around- man oh man- it is kicking my butt!
(Side note: My dear sweet baby in my belly, if you are reading this right now. Don't feel unloved or unwanted. You are so much loved by everyone and everyone is so excited to see you that we can hardly wait. It isn't your fault that mommy is bigger and more exhausted with you inside me. It is a lot of other external factors that contribute to that.)
Naptime is over. Although I love to enjoy a quiet home for a couple of hours each day. I love it when the girls wake up and come snuggle with my on the couch for awhile when they are still waking up. We turn on the food network channel. This is a habit that we started when I was very sick in my first trimester. I was so sick I could not smell, prepare, or eat most foods. However, I found it fun to watch others do it. Sick I know. But the girls and I now love to watch Rachel Ray, Down Home with the Neeley's, and Paula Dean cooking shows. They make the best stuff and they are entertaining to watch. This also gets me thinking about what we can make for dinner and get new ideas for recipes. I don't mind cooking and baking. It is the planning and coming up with new good things to make that I hate. If someone did that for me everyday, that would make it so much easier. So watching others cook yummy things, gives me motivation to do it too.
Rob usually comes through the door around 5:30pm. The girls scream, "Daddy!" and run to greet him at the back door immediatly. I'm wondering why I don't get that kind of reaction when I come through a door? Maybe it is because I'm not often gone long enough from them, for them to miss me like that. When daddy comes home it is a party. They are crawling all over him, asking him question after question, and Alyssa's mouth is going 100 miles per hour telling him all about her day.
Being home all day with them and being used as the girl's personal jungle gym, I have to admit that I really enjoy sitting back for awhile and watching them switch all their energy onto him, and I have my own space around me to myself.

(to be continued...let's face it, I've got other things to do today then blog)

Mother's Day 2010

I think mothers look forward to this day all year round. One day a year that we are entitled to relaxation, being spoiled a little, and letting go of daily duties, without guilt. At least this is how I feel the day should be.

Ironically, Mother's Day falls on Sunday. The Sabba Day. The day of rest. As a mother with young children at home, I wonder sometimes why Sunday is called the day of rest? I've been a Christian long enough to understand that it is meant to be a day of resting away from the things of the world. The day is meant to be spent with as much spirituality, worship, family time, and to leave out as much of the worldy things as possible.

Still, knowing this and trying to live this on every Sunday most of my life, I have found as a mother it is almost impossible to have a restful day. I will say it is more restful than the other days of the week. It is more spiritual than other days of the week. However, between getting me and the kids ready and sitting in church by 9am, preparing what is needed to fullfill my duties as a primary leader, wrestling my children and the other 85 children in our primary during 3 hours of meetings, I feel anything but rested and spiritually fed at the end of my church day.

This past Sunday, Mother's Day 2010. I would have thought it would have been extra restful and special. Instead it was especially crazy and busy. Some primary teachers didn't show up to teach their classes, one of our primary leaders got very sick and couldn't come, the children were being overly hyper and extra loud, and me being large with child and rushing out of the house without eating breakfast, all contributed to a very long day of church meetings. By the time we got my family home, fed lunch and put down for their afternoon nap, I felt like I had worked out my gym for 3 hours instead of sitting at church. I felt very tired, frusterated, and hungry!

My sweet husband made me my Sunday after church snack- Ritz crackers with melted cheese and a dab of ketsup on them(don't judge until you sample them), accompanied by a diet pepsi over ice. Not the most healthy lunch time snack ever, but it sure hits the spot with me. I changed my puffed up body out of my church clothes and into my comfy clothes, and laid down on my bed and took my Sunday nap. It was delightful!

After I felt refueled a little the girls were up and we spent the evening playing together and watching our routine Sunday shows- Extreme Makeover Home Edition, and America's Funniest Home Videos. Both sure fire family shows to cheer your soul and make you cry, in a good way.

The 2 days before Mother's Day, started off being WAY TOO full of busy jobs and tasks as that needed to get done. But we made the decision to squeeze a little much needed family time fun into it. Rob and I took our girls to Oklahoma City Friday afternoon through Saturday afternoon to stay over night at a hotel. Of course the hotel had to have a pool for the girls, not for me. The main pull to OKC wasn't to swim in a hotel pool, but to attend the temple sealing of a family in our church that have become good friends to us. So Saturday morning, we took the girls along with us because Alyssa had been asking to see the temple that her mommy and daddy had got married at. It was a beautiful day outside to go to the temple. The family was sealed to their 4 children for time and eternity. It was very special and touching to witness that. It brings back a lot of feelings and emotions of happines and graditude for being sealed to my own husband and children.

After the weekend was over, overall I feel pretty dang lucky to be a mother and a wife. So what if on Mother's Day I wasn't pampered, spoiled, or relaxed as I would have liked to have been. I think I have some of the most important things I could ever ask for everyday. A husband who loves me enough to want to spend eternity with me, (let's face it, that is no easy task) and two healthy little girls who love me even when I'm not the best mommy I can be.