beanski

nesting

Have you seriously ever seen anything cuter?

busy bag swap

I have come across a few websites recently talking about the concept of Busy Bags. A Busy Bag is basically a Ziploc baggie or container containing an activity to keep kid interested and busy for a small chunk of time. It can be anything from stringing colored pasta to make a necklace to creating puppets made of felt to sorting colors or numbers. The possibilities are truly endless, especially heading into Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. The idea is that everything you need to make the craft is enclosed in a single Busy Bag so you and your kids aren't scrambling looking for something for your project at the last minute.

With the new baby coming in the dead of winter and the idea of being trapped indoors for long periods of time with an almost kindergartener (seriously, how did that happen?), an overly active soon-to-be preschooler and an infant, my nesting focus this pregnancy is less on freezing food and more on how in the heck I'm going to keep the two big ones occupied long enough for me to feed the baby. When left to their own devices, said big ones generally resort to fighting and that raises my blood pressure about nine million points instantly.

In order to try to combat the number of hours of television they log while I’m nursing every seven seconds, I've started to pull together a collection of Busy Bags in a Rubbermaid container in the basement. Last night, when I was sorting googly eyes for a Halloween bag to make ghosts, I had an epiphany. I have already purchased enough googly eyes to make at least 50 Halloween ghosts and while I can add them to my ever growing stash of crafting crap, why not exchange the Busy Bags with other moms? How many other Busy Bags could I put together with just the stuff I have stockpiled from other crafting projects without even spending a dime?

I went to the computer first thing this morning and googled Busy Bag Swap and apparently there are people all over the country doing similar things. I really love the concept and how easy it is to put one together but what I love even more is the concept of a package of different Busy Bags made by other people showing up on my doorstep at some point. I love the concept of variety. I love the thrill of playing something with the kids that I didn't have to spend tons of my own time thinking about.

Is there anyone out there interested in doing this with me? If I can find enough people, I will pull together a list and everyone will have a couple of weeks to mail their Busy Bags to my house along with some set number of dollars for return postage (or if they are local we can obviously meet and swap and save the postage). Once I have all of the bags, I'll divide them up and mail them back out to you in one big package. I can’t imagine it costing more than $10 to mail them and I am fairly certain I could make 50 Busy Bags for less than $25. I'd like to keep the age range preschooler to early grade school (first grade?).

I'm going to share this idea on Facebook as well as send an email out to my friends that are parents of little ones to see how many people are interested. If you know someone you think might want to do it, send the link to this post to them as well. I'm so excited about the concept and hope someone else out there is too!

If you're interested, leave a comment with the following:

1. Your name (make sure you leave an email address so I can contact you)
2. How many kids you have and their ages (in my world, each kid gets their own bag or war is sure to ensue)

Some Busy Bag ideas or simply good Busy Bags or Activity Bags. There are ideas EVERYWHERE.

Natural Parents Network

Unsolicited Advice

Busy Bee Bags

Money Saving Moms

austin

The kids are both adamant that the baby's name is going to be Austin. We came home from the Twins game this weekend and they had Nena and Grandpa convinced that was his name and that the kids had spilled the beans.

Austin. Seriously, no offense against that name really, I think it's a fine name. But it is totally not our style and it makes me laugh out loud every time the kids mention it.

It will always remind me of this one night when my sister and her husband were at the grocery store after a few too many cocktails and Taber had selected a box of Hot N Spicy Cheezits and when they went to checkout, the price didn't ring up and the cashier who happened to be slightly on the feminine side for a young, college male put his mouth to the microphone and in his favorite gay man voice said:

"AUUUUUUSTIN, WE NEED A PRICE CHECK ON THE HOT N SPICY CHEEEEEEZITS."

Everyone should get to hear Taber tell that story after about eight beers while sitting around the campfire. I can't do it justice in writing but I do know in ten years when I go back and read this, I'll still hear the impersonation in my head. And I'll remember fondly these months where my four year old and my two year old are so very sure that we are actually going to let them name their new brother and how each and every time one of them say it, I literally laugh out loud. It really never gets old.

So yeah. Apparently we're having a son named Austin the first part of December.

friday night leftovers

1. People generally treat you like a freak when they find out you are pregnant with your third baby. They automatically assume that if you are having a third that it was automatically an accident and they look at you with sympathy instead of excitement. This assumption gets even more pronounced when you already have one boy and one girl. I love the perplexed look on people's faces when I tell them we have a girl and a boy and are having another boy. It is as if they are not really listening to me but busy getting their "well, now maybe you can have a girl/boy" comment out for when I inevitably say we're having a third because I wanted a little girl or something and when I shoot down that obvious conclusion, they don't even know what to say next and they just stare blankly at me as if I'm totally crazy. Only a fool would want to have three children. Clearly.

2. Men are much more sympathetic when you say that you are experiencing back pain due to pregnancy than any woman could ever dream of being. Even if those women are doulas and are actually paid real cash money to be sympathetic towards pregnant people. I don't know if it because the men are afraid of pregnant women and just agree with anything they say or if it is because men are generally way less rude and bitchy than females.

3. One can get heartburn as a direct result of drinking a glass of water.

4. Your husband can only put up with your complaining for so many weeks before he starts ignoring virtually every word you say. You know how your kids don't listen when you ask them nicely and only respond when you're all up in their face DEMANDING that they listen? Yeah, husbands do that too. And it's equally annoying.

5. The three hour gestational diabetes test is cruel and unusual punishment. I would like to know why I ALWAYS fail the one hour test but merrily pass the three hour. At least I'll won't have to do that effing test a fourth time. Gross.

6. UPS leaves no fewer than five boxes on my front porch on any given day. Coming home from work is like Christmas. Most of it IS for Christmas but it is currently the only fun part of my day. Not counting the seven seconds after I get to school/daycare to pick up the kids as they are excited to see me for exactly seven seconds before they start crying to to go out to dinner or demanding that we go to the playground.

7. I want my mommy.

8. Now that I go back and read these, #4 actually cancels out #2. The men at work may seem like they are being nice but chances are they just aren't listening to a word I say. EPIPHANY.

9. I ordered no fewer than five pairs of boots all excited about the prospect about wearing leggings and long shirts and scarves and boots. I'm still laughing at my stupidity because I forgot that I can't even bend over far enough to touch my toes. You should have seen me attempting to try those bad boys on. Pathetic.

10. I want a new phone and can't decide if I should wait until Apple decides to grace us all with their next generation of the iPhone or if I should just get an iPhone 4. Dear Apple, I know you think you're the popular kid at school and everything but could you at least just release a date that I could get my hands on an iPhone 5? Inquiring minds want to know so they can, you know, budget. Is that too much to ask?

the guilt

You kind of forget about this part of pregnancy. At least I did. The part where you feel like time is ticking by too quickly and it is running out on your other kids. You watch them play and you soak them in and you hug them extra tight because you just know that you'll wake up one day a year from now and the baby haze will be lifting and you'll have a five year old and an almost four year old and you'll wonder where they went.

When he begged for me to lay down with him at naptime today, I did it even though I had a lot of work/cooking/projects already slotted for naptime. I laid down with him because he usually picks dad and has lately been picking mom and it is a wonderful change of pace for me. I laid down with him and I smelled his hair that is getting courser and courser by the day because I know. I know that in a couple of months I won't have the luxury of laying down with him for an hour. I know how much I'll miss him.

When I took her last week to for her well child visit (three months late) and the doctor wanted to get her caught up on her shots and I agreed to let her have four shots at once, something I never ever do with the kids because I'm so afraid of pumping them full of all that crap at the same time and them having a reaction and me not knowing what it is from and she cried so hard and made desparate noises that I never hear come out of her, I totally took her straight home and curled up on the couch with her. I felt so motherly, so protective of her. I just couldn't bear the thought of sending her to preschool after that. I couldn't bear the thought of being away from her after that. I took her home and I let her watch 14 episodes of Scooby Doo and I let her eat her lunch in the living room and then took her to the mall for new books and make-up and few dozen rides on the carousel. I let her do what she wanted for an entire day because I know that it won't be long now and I won't have the option of spending an entire day with just my favorite girl. 

After a week of panicking about not getting enough done, not being ready for the baby to come, being angry and annoyed with everything going around me, I stopped tonight for a few minutes to look through the pictures I've taken in the last two weeks and I realized something. I am getting something done. I am spending time with my children. I am soaking them up and I'm taking them out for breakfast and then to the Rose Garden to play and then to Great Harvest for cookies after because right now I can and in a few months I know I'll have a newborn's schedule to contend with. I'm using my vacation time to make sure my girl knows how much I love her instead of sewing crib skirts and I'm getting down on the floor to play trains and legos and Polly Pockets even when it hurts because in just a couple of months I'll have arms full of a baby and I I know that I won't care what isn't done in the nursery, I'll just miss my big kids.


I realized today that I do have control over what is going on around me and I'm making the right choice. I'm choosing my kids. And for the first time in weeks, I think I'll sleep OK tonight.

so much to do

My emotions seesaw like the waves on an ocean. One day I’m convinced everything is going to be OK and the next I’m laying awake all night long worrying endlessly about things I have no control over.

I’m very unsure of myself. I’m very unsure that I am capable of taking care of this baby. A pretty much useless back has left me helpless and I can’t do anything for myself. There is laundry and toys piled in every single corner of the house, a habit of my husband’s that makes me want to throw things at the wall even when I’m not pregnant and can actually do something about it.

And there has been some of that. I’m not necessarily a nice, happy pregnant person this time around.

It’s hard for me to admit that because I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I’m never doing this again. Come December I’ll never feel what it’s like to have a baby kicking around on the inside again and honestly, those kicks in the wee hours of the morning are the only part of this pregnancy that has been any fun.

Decorating the nursery started out fun but as of now, I have all but given up on doing the things I wanted to do in there all together. It makes me so angry when I walk by his room piled from floor to ceiling with clothes and crap that I hoped to do something with to welcome him into our lives. Money already spent that I may as well have just thrown straight into the garbage. I’m resentful that I haven’t gotten ready for Christmas like I planned to do and that I haven’t planned Cam’s third birthday party. It makes me mad that I haven’t started freezing food. I’m resentful that I never get any time to do the things that I want to do for me.

Between the fantasy football drafts (seriously, does one person really need three fantasy football teams) and making sure the kids get enough fun in over the summer and celebrating our anniversary and visiting family and taking and editing pictures for a whole lot of different people, there just wasn’t time for me. And now, here I am, starting my third trimester, life slowing down to the point where I might actually have the time to do something for myself and now I struggle physically to even get in and out of my car. After eight hours of sitting in my chair at work, I can’t even walk so now even the evenings are useless. I’m capable of lying down on the couch to watch some stupid TV show that I hate or reading book after book after book.

My husband went out of town for four days over Labor Day and I spent the entire month leading up to the trip completely TERRIFIED of how I was going to do it all, the baths, the meals, and the clean-up at the end of the day. I mean, I can’t even physically get the kids up to their rooms for a time-out. To my surprise, my kids were very helpful and supportive and the weekend at home alone with them was way easier than the week following the trip has been. We’re at each other’s throats, all of us. Renee started preschool full-time and isn’t pleased about it. Ski is tired from his trip. Cam is Cam. I’m hurting and have totally unrealistic work deadlines looming. Deadlines that are impossible to meet when I’m constantly running to the clinic for a shot of progesterone that makes me even more emotional than I already am or to the chiropractor for an adjustment that is costing me thousands of dollars and doing basically no good all. Or to the pediatrician for well child visits and shots that my kids are already so far behind on and loading her up with five vaccinations at once because I don’t have time to bring her back and she ends up sick with a fever for days on end. We all need to get to the dentist. I need to get clothes/boots/hats/mittens/Halloween costumes/ etc for fall and winter. I need to spend some time working with Cameron on the potty. The baby has basically no where to even sleep. I’m exhausted. I just can’t keep up with all of it. I’m paralyzed with the enormity of just how much there is to do that I almost can’t do anything at all.

 I look outside at the most perfect weather I could possibly dream of and it makes me sad that I have absolutely no desire to go out and enjoy it. I have tomatoes in my garden that look red and delicious but I can’t physically get myself to walk out there and pick them. What I really want to do is just curl up in my bed and sleep until Christmas. I don’t want to talk to anyone; I don’t want to do anything except mope around.

I tell myself over and over and over again to let it go. I tell myself that it isn’t that big of a deal. I look through pictures on my phone of Cameron a year ago with his curly little mullet and his chubby baby thighs and I know that it is all going to be over before I even know. My head knows it. Unfortunately, I just can’t seem to get the rest of me to believe it.

I thought maybe writing it down and admitting defeat, accepting that I can’t do it all would make me feel better. I think it made me feel worse.