Woeful Wednesday

Wednesday's child is full of woe. Well yesterday was Wednesday and for me, it was a day full of various woe. I woke up with my blood sugar tanked completely and that took me a while to get through it. I have such a high metabolism that I would diagnose myself as being hypoglycemic, which in general is the opposite end of the spectrum from diabetes. I literally have to eat every couple hours, or it's just NOT pretty. It's a bigger challenge to overcome now that I'm growing a human. The parasite just sucks more out of me, making me have to eat that much more often. Ah the things a mother will do. It was early release day and Clone got picked up 15 minutes late from school because I was just moving slow at work. I decided to scope out a nearby second hand store, because I've been looking for a bathing suit cover-up to alleviate the unsightlyness of my ham hocks. In the middle of shopping, I thought of one of the ladies from my CRHP team who has been fighting cancer for a long time. She's come to mind several times over the past couple months. I left the store shortly after that and came home to lay down. My belly was feeling heavy, and I needed to rest before trekking the kids to church for class. Plus Clone needed to work on her homework. I laid in my bed for a couple hours, talked on the phone to Persnickety - who commented that my blog has become constant commentary about my pregnancy and its varying issues and aspects. Sorry...I've long blogged about what I know and deal with on a daily basis. So, welcome to my world, thanks for not falling off my readership list of followers. I'd apologize to those that stopped reading it, but they're not here anymore to read it.
Well I looked at the clock and WOOPS, it was nearly time to go and I hadn't defunked from work yet. So off to the shower for scrubbing and relaxing. I was about 5 minutes from reaching relaxed, when there was a lot of punching and slamming of a door. I knew it was the boys. They got into a fisticuff on Saturday when I was up at the church serving lunch to the ladies at the retreat. I came home to a broken colander, trash can, and I'm afriad to even LOOK for anything else. I was essentially yanked out of the shower between rinsing conditioner and soaping my pits. I was at least able to shave my legs, while I can still reach them. They were fighting over TV programming. I told them if they got into another fight I was going to call the cops, because I'm just not going to deal with that crap. Plus it's the 2nd fight in just a few days (Saturday, then Wednesday), both times in front of their little sister. Plus if they are going to throw punches, do it in the yard. At least nothing in the house will get broken. I'd sell tickets for the neighbors to watch. Most of the time I spent sitting in the church parking lot was uncomfortable because the stress sent my belly into a tizzy. It took a while for things to settle down finally.
I came home and rested some more, made some chicken noodle soup from the stash of stock I had in the freezer, and RW carted Clone off to bed for me. I was Wanda Whiner at that point. My aunt R told me she was changing my name. She did say that admittedly it was a difficult day for me, and I had permission to whine for a while, but I couldn't let it go on forever. Then I made the error of checking my email and boards while on the phone with her.
The worst email of the day came saying my friend from my CRHP team that I thought about earlier in the day died right around the time I was thinking of her. Please keep the Ashmore family in your thoughts and prayers. Aimee had such incredible faith and she inspired me with her joy and smile, even in the face of challenge. It certainly put a lot of my day into perspective.
Then-I checked my boards on iVillage. One of the girls on my expecting club board was in danger of losing her little boy at 22 weeks because the placenta wasn't doing it's job properly. The blood flow to the baby was not good enough to keep him going till at least 24 weeks. We were holding out hope she could hang onto him till then. Vincent Patrick couldn't keep fighting any longer. It makes my heart break for her and her family. Here I am, I just look sideways at my husband and BOOM I get pregnant. Yet there are others that just struggle to GET pregnant and have to fight to STAY pregnant. It doesn't seem fair.
By the time Devildog got home from work, I was a mess of snot and tears. He listened to me whine a few minutes actually said something that wasn't caveman commentary, and was nice to me. I listened to him download his day, which wasn't a cakewalk for him to deal with the nonsense and BS a retail job hands a person.
In a word, my day was just woeful yesterday and it sucked. So today I haven't done much so far except sleep late. Thankfully Clone was helped to get ready this morning by the big brother and Devildog took her to school. I got up from the bed sometime closer to lunch than breakfast. I accompanied Devildog to the barber and we had lunch together. It was just nice to spend some time with him that didn't include kids, friends, or stress. Although, there was a guy at the counter sniping about the price of his milkshake and being a general bag of butt about it. It bemused me to hear Peggy, the lady at the counter, turn to her manager as the manager came to smooth feathers, and say "It's fine hon, he's been drinking. I can smell it on him." And Peggy, God love her, was not quiet about it, because practically every head in the place turned to see what Peggy was talking about when she said it. Yesterday was one of those days that if I wasn't pregnant, I would've been drinking. Nothing like a Whalers Vanille Rum and Dr Pepper to take the edge off a non-pregnant woeful Wednesday. But for now? It would be a Water Wednesday. No rum for me-woeful or otherwise.

vocabulary of a child

The tv was on, and a commercial for Children's Claritin aired. I wasn't really paying attention to it, but RW (the oldest) heard it. He was standing at the fridge getting his lunch, and looked at me and said "I love that. Because 6 year olds would say 'drowsy'. " and he made a face of incredulity. He went on to say that every other 6 year old he's ever known says "sleepy", ending with a huffy "duuuh"

I can SEEE!!!

So I have this penchant for losing and misplacing things. While I have gotten better about it, consider it a microscopic improvement over my childhood ok? Apparently when I lose things, It means I have to clean the mom-bus. Today, I went to work, and I turned around in my seat, while I still can do that, to stack the stuff I needed for work on the back floorboard so I can grab it, my workbag and go. Apparently my glasses fell out of my purse the other day and slid under a seat. So here I sit, eyeball-pain free. I so need to just go get a 2nd pair of glasses for the house and keep these scratched up buggers in the van. My luck, I'll misplace those too - in a pile of laundry in my room or papers next to the desk. Apparently I also have issues with putting away things where they belong. It's genetic, I assure you.

It's a redneck wedding

My husband has a couple friends from work that have been together for a long time and are finally getting married this weekend. I was told there was going to be a party for them, and because Devildog never gives me the full story, I have to follow up with his buddies to get that information. I've actually told the guys to just forward the info to me because Devildog will neglect to let me know till last minute, or like now, neglect key points. I was under the impression it was an engagement party. No, it's a wedding reception.
So, I'm out at the OB's office for my monthly checkup and while I'm driving, I see dh's friend who is hosting the party. I called to harass Red about the contents of his truck bed, but he didn't answer. I was trolling a second hand shop (that is now on my monthly 'must stop' list of places) to scope out baby and mommy stuff when Red called me back. He clarified the story for me, saying J & K were "pulling the trigger" because there's a group trip to the beach next weekend, so they're using that as their honeymoon. Red went on to say that J & K were going to originally have pizza at the party and he put a stop to that, because every redneck has to have a certain standard, and pizza was below his standard. So it was being catered by a BBQ place instead of a pizza joint. As I re-read that I suddenly started hearing Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman" in my head....specifically that part about "high class broad". I know J & K enough to know that her father won't have to announce the nuptuals like this guy did.

I hate losing stuff

Last week I misplaced my sunglasses again. Come to find out my Clone took them to use outside and left them on the side shelf of the grill for several days while I was tortured by used the old metal rimmed ones again. I can't find my eyeglasses now. I had them last night. I took them off my face, put them in the case where they belong, and now....I have no clue. Unless they're hiding under something I've already searched, like in my workbag (that thing's a vortex like my purse), I may have lost the buggers. I was needing them earlier in the day but didn't want to spend the time to go outside and get them out of the van (logic at work today). They're reading glasses, but sometimes they help the fine tuning for my eyeballs and I don't feel like I have to work so hard to see. It's bad enough I'm over 30. It's bad enough my eyeballs are aging. It's challenging enough being pregnant. It's annoying enough to be hungry all the time, more so than I normally am, and right now I'm really wanting food, but want nothing we have in the house. It's bad enough that I already have a penchant for misplacing things. If it weren't for babies making noise, I might have misplaced them a time or two as well. But good grief, all these things combined are just really enough to push me towards cranky. And we all know a cranky pregnant woman is not what anyone wants. A cranky pregnant woman whose eyeballs are straining just to see her world, much less her computer screen...well it's enough to drive me over the edge. But that side of the edge probably doesn't have food - OR my glasses.

I have decided to rename the Oldest

He's needed a new name, something other than 'Oldest', but nothing came to mind. Well tonight he got his name. Ron. As in Ron White of Blue Collar Comedy fame. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7WLfY2455o The boy has the right to remain silent. He lacks the ability. He talks more than I do. He talks more than my husband's Aunt J. does (IF that's even humanly possible-she seriously outtalks me to where I can't get a word in edgewise). And I was really irritated with him. Now that I've listened to this clip, I am in better humor and can go to bed finally. Except I had to post my new nickname for my son so that I could just vent a bit about what was bugging the crap out of me. I thought about knitting the towel I started last June, but it's in the van. I'm not going outside this late at night. So there you have it. Oldest, is now Ron. I might call him RW so that it has multiple acronyms associated with his new blog name. We'll see how it goes. Now I am going to bed....

Feeling like an ostrich and an incubator

Yes, it's a strange post title, but the past week I indeed have felt like playing ostrich and avoiding anything outside my immediate world. Things are a just plain out of whack these days and it's making me bonkers. I do have some ample blog fodder to share, but lack the energy to share such things. I know, it's just strange that I don't even have the energy to share blog-worthy happenings with my readers. I haven't been cranky, but back in February I was. Feeling green all the time, and constantly tired made me cranky. My oh so lovely 15 year old can be quoted as saying in a half-joking manner "I don't think you're really pregnant. I just think you're fat with an attitude problem." They've figured out quickly to just leave me alone.
Meanwhile, I have the stowaway being all parasitic and stuff. Lil bugger's bones are ossifying around this time according to the developmental ticker thing that isn't humorous like the one I posted at the top of the page. So that means I'm craving a lot of cheese, and SLEEP. I keep telling my people that growing a human takes a lot of energy. I am guessing that ossifying bones is super energy zapping because it seems like this whole past week, ALL I want to do is sleep. OK, so I do want to get up and clean and do things, but seriously, I lack the extra oomph. I need that extra oomph to get past my small speedbump when I sit on the floor or a low chair. So my nesting urge is screaming, but my body yawns. I was in the bed asleep when Devildog came home from work today. He asked if I was ok - I guess the way I was laying in the bed wasn't usual for me. I told him that I was fine, just super tired, that baby's bones are forming and it's zapping me. He grunted. You know, that code for "yea right"? I said "Hey, growing a human takes lots of energy out of me."

"I think you just tell me that because I can't prove it." See? Oldest isn't 100% exactly like me, he's got his father's snark too.

Awesome Friends

A month ago or so, I was talking to my oldest sister. Our calls are usually brief, since she's not anything like me on the phone. Birthdays were mentioned, and she sighed "yeah, I'll be 50 this year". We grew up with pretty much no celebration of a birthday. It was generally just another day. That is why my kids get some sort of recognition for birthdays - because I always wanted just a little something, even if it was my choice of dinner and a box mix cake. So, I set out on a mission to make my sister's 50th birthday anything but 'just another day', or just any other birthday. I called Sis's friend to conspire with her about things. I originally wanted to reserve a room at a buffet place and just tell everyone to pay their own way in, meet us in the back room and don't worry about bringing any gifts. Sis has no room in her small house anyway for a lot of stuff. Well I got nowhere with the buffet places because we wanted the back room on a weekend (their busy days) plus since her birthday is the day after Easter this year, it was EASTER weekend to boot. They don't like to reserve those rooms till it's bedtime for the kids on a school night. Old people, preggos, and skinny folks can't wait till 8 PM to eat dinner without repercussions. Back to square one. Someone's house. Sis's husband wasn't exactly prime host material, but he would prove to be a good co-conspirator. My house - we have boxes piled up everywhere in expectation of moving in a few months when a better fitting house finds us. Sis's friend is my hero. She went to bat and opened her house. I was put in charge of gathering family members, she gathered some friends. Then to boot, she slaved over the stove making lasagna. Now most people would just open the freezer case at the store and get the big pan of frozen stuff. For the love of Sis, her friend made this lasagna from SCRATCH. Foodgasmic, gooey, sloppy, falling apart on the plate, honestly home made lasagna. I'm drooling just typing it. Sis was told it was Easter dinner with her friend's home made lasagna. Sis was late getting there, because she thought they were just going to put the lasagna in the oven at 2 and go to Walmart. Every time they get together, they go to Walmart, even if they don't buy anything. Well when sis FINALLY got there, almost an hour late she was completely shocked to see everyone there. We parked at the neighbor's house and Sis was oblivious to driving right past our cars. So, I had the camera and Devildog was poised at the door to yank it open so the rest of us could yell "SURPRISE!" It was so worth every bit of work. Sis deserves a kick butt birthday, even if it's just once in her life. She's a kick butt sister. She has some seriously KICK BUTT friends. And I can't say enough about how her friends just utterly and completely ROCK! The R's are both heroes because their teamwork amazes me. I can only hope that one day I can repay them for letting me con them into doing this. I didn't do nearly as much as I wanted to share the workload. Friend took on much more than she should have - all for the love of Sis.
So, for all that, she's my hero, and an awesome friend.

Crazy Weekend

I am in the middle of a crazy weekend. Devildog worked a funky shift again and I'd like to thank the scheduler for such idiotic hours by dropping my children off on his doorstep for a few days. It's Easter, so we had the egg coloring fun that started and ended way too late in the day. My kitchen was taken over by the kids and I got to play with about 4 eggs whereas the kids argued over who got to color more eggs than the other one. Meanwhile I have the ingredients to California Caviar calling my name to be concocted into something needing a good overnight meld. I was not about to have fuschia and teal egg dye colors getting into the bowl with my contribution to my sister's surprise 50th birthday party. The kids had their work spread out all over my kitchen. Of course if I had REAL counters that actually were counters and not MacGuyvered ones, I would have been able to work over by the sink. Oh wait, nevermind, the Beast was reluctant to do his job and actually WASH the dishes till I fussed at him. So I would have needed to wait longer anyway. Now I'm just at the end of my energy for the day and even though the Beast begged to help me, I told him I just didn't want to direct traffic and share this task. I got edged out of the egg dye fun so I wanted something for myself. This is the child that wants to do culinary stuff too. So now this maternal guilt is bugging me for not letting him help me. I may let him make another batch of it when we get home after the party or something, or maybe in a few days when it isn't QUITE as crazy.
This past week has been uber busy with 4 resets and 4 service calls. However, I've done enough of them, that I have been doing them faster and faster. It sucks for my paycheck but since I just want to get them done and get out of there, it's good for my mental health. I may have broken a company record Thursday by getting the most recent reset done in 2 hours 35 minutes. If nothing else, I broke a personal record and probably a district record. The resets were slated to take six hours, and thankfully my district coordinator came up with a placement chart for the plastic shelf tags that speeds the process up by at least an hour or two. But in all of this, I was really tired and worn out this week. I took lots of breaks so I wouldn't overdo things. I drank plenty of water. And when I went shopping Friday for the groceries I'd need for the weekend, I used the fart cart in all three stores I visited. And I got the "lazy skinny broad" stares from people. I'll also be glad when people stop telling me that I don't LOOK pregnant. Surely I FEEL every bit of it, including what seems to be some pointy feet in some tender internal parts this morning. Oh gee, won't *I* be the life of the party instead of my 50 year old sister.

More Teeth and Safety Schmafety

I had a dentist appointment Monday. The staff has become well acquainted with who I am now. I haven't been in 7 years since the last uppity dentist I went to ticked me off when they didn't send me a reminder or call me about my need for a 6 month checkup. I suspect it's because I had a remaining $7.62 balance from some fillings a few months beforehand and I was not one of those gullible patients that fall for their "buy into the whole glamorous smile" marketing scheme they had going. Seriously that guy's office had me watch a video on getting the perfect smile before I got any x-rays or a cleaning. I knew I wasn't going to be at their practice long. So, I knew I had some cavities because it's been 7 years since my last cleaning, and I'm not anal about dental care. Kate Gosselin would be horrified at our dental habits - and our house but that's another story. This new office uses a sonic scraper or something, and I don't like it. I'd rather have an hour of manual scraping believe it or not. Heebie-Jeebie big time for me. Since I can't get any x-rays because of the stowaway, Dr. J had to do a visual check only and make a best guess about the state of my teeth. One of my fillings from Dr. Uppity is meeting with some weak spots on that tooth. The hygenist snagged the filling when she flossed my teeth. It's still bothering me. I told Dr. J that I found my own cavities and pointed to my front teeth. Sure enough, all four of those suckers need work. I'm going to wait till the stowaway is born to do the fillings though. I can't lay in that chair very long before getting lightheaded, so I'm not even going to try it.
The rest of my errands after the space age dental scraping and no x-ray cavity inspection included Target. In the parking lot, the woman I parked next to was loading her loot and her infant in the baby bucket in the Nissan Xterra. No big deal right? Well this baby maker was buckling the baby seat in facing forward. FORWARD, as in not the way the seat was intended, nor the way federal law mandates infants face in a car. I said "I think the seat is backwards." and she just looked at me like "what the hell do you know." And how much do you want to bet that if she gets into an accident and something happens to her child, she's going to be first in line to sue the car seat manufacturer. Why? Because apparently a representative from the carseat company wasn't there to hold a gun to her head and make her turn the bleeping seat around to face the rear. Wait, but didn't she read all the idiot clauses on the seat, the box, the printed materials, in her vehicle's owners manual? I'd bet not. Once again, Darwin fails to open that back door of the waiting room, and it still overflows.

Bleh

Yep, my vocabulary is so stellar isn't it? I go from "meh" to "bleh" so nicely. I have not had Persnickety nearby to feed my snark. I have not been in the best of moods, so I've been silent for lack of desire to need peppermint anything later. I also have this parasitic stowaway that makes me want to do nothing but eat and sleep (minus the dirty diapers) like a baby would. I really DO want to get stuff done around the house, but I'm stretched thin at work and exhausted by the time I get home. All of THAT work limits what I can physically tolerate doing around the house. This whole being pregnant post-30 is for the birds. It was much much easier the first three go-rounds of this stuff. First of all, I was way more pliable. Today I was squatting down in front of the extra freezer to see what was at the bottom of it. My plan was to get dinner for Sunday defrosting. I couldn't exactly get up easily. I *almost* had to ask one of the teenagers for a hand to get up. They laughed at me. It does wonders for a pregnant woman's ego to be laughed at for the struggle to rise from the floor. I plan to torture them later when I'm truly a beached whale. Hmph.

I guess if you need some more entertainment, you'll need to visit the Crazy Lady.

meh

Been a long week.

Today was a lot of work for me.

I lost cognitive function hours ago.

My lone sentiment at the moment:

-MEH-