3rd time is boring

Just got back from the appointment. It went well. It was boring and long and uneventful. Uneventful is good though. Since this is my third pregnancy I just feel like it's almost pointless. To run through the list of cheeses and meats not to eat, to tell me to eat protein and take my vitamins. It's so weird how unenthused I was afterwards.

Maybe because I was originally due in October with the twins, I feel like by now I should be talking birth plans, and drinking gross glucose drinks, and actually moving somewhere instead of being 6 weeks and literally there is nothing to do. No ultrasounds, no heat beats, no positions.

Or maybe it's because I've been to the exciting part with Barclay and appointments near the end were more and more medical as they felt if the baby was in a good position or checked my cervix.

Don't get me wrong. I'm thankful I had a good, uneventful, boring appointment because it means everything was as it should be. But it's hard to FEEL so different and in your heart you are bursting with joy about a baby the size of a sweet pea, and you can't see it, feel it, and the midwife refers to it like it's some foreign object that might come into being in the next 8 months or so.

Thanks for all the prayers:-)

Sweet Pea

Today my baby is as big as a sweet pea and I've decided I like it. So I've changed my blog name to: Barclay and Me...and Sweet Pea.

Today I'm going for my first appointment with the new midwifery I'm probably going to use to deliver little sweet pea. I'm nervous of course, but I'm also excited. I feel so terrible and sick that I'm sure these pregnancy hormones are just a raging through my body.

If you think about it, pray for a good check up.

Giddiness

I was looking through old facebook pictures the other day and looked through the album of Barclay's birth.

After looking through all of these I can't help but feel absolutely giddy about doing it again:-)

A Mouse in my House!

Since I'm already writing Fails, I thought I'd also write about another funny instance from this past week.

I've pretty much let my house go the past month. I've pretty much only done the bare necessities and that does not include sweeping up the millions of crumbs that are a daily occurrence when raising a little boy like Barclay. It was bad. I knew it. I even had a babysitter coming the next day to watch Barclay so I could get it DONE before my killer morning sickness kicked in.

So the night before the babysitter was to come, I slept in the guest room (waking every 30 minutes to wipe the blood out of Barclay's mouth from where he bit through his tongue...that's another story), Noah slept in our room. The next morning he told me that he had awakened in the middle of the night to squeaking and had followed the noise to our closet, where he found a mouse!!! He shut the door to keep him out and plugged the bottom of the door with a towel. The next morning, a very grouchy me was told of the mouse and I was SO sad:-( That really cemented the fact that I am the #1 worst housewife ever! I also hate mice and the thought of a mouse in our closet made me ill.

Anyhow, I bought some mouse traps and bravely opened the door for a second to put them in there. About 20 minutes later I heard..."mouse screams" coming from the closet. I ran and got the babysitter to come with me since I was scared to death and also feeling pretty cruel for killing a mouse and having it scream! She offered to check for me...no mouse. Then she started looking around the closet. No droppings, no signs of a nest, no scurrying, no squeaking...

I then called Noah to see if maybe he had slept walked (a daily occurrence) and dreamed about the mouse since there was zero evidence of one. His response..."Oh yeah, maybe I dreamed it. Yeah I think I did."

So needless to say, the non mouse we had in our house scared me into cleaning big time. Maybe that was Noah's goal in telling me this mouse story.

Car Trouble

I meant to post this story last Friday, but I was so in shock from a positive pregnancy test that it was the last thing on my mind!

Barclay's favorite thing to do right now is "Dwiiiiive!" This entails him sitting in the drivers seat of any car and playing with the steering wheel and putting the keys in the ignition. He could do it for hours!

So last Wednesday, Barclay was fussing and crying to "Dwiiive! Dwiiive!". So I took him out in the rain, sat him in the drivers seat, handed him the keys, and shut the door so I could run around to the passenger's side so I could sit and watch him. Seriously, less than a second after shutting the door, "beep beep." He locked the door on me by pushing the lock button on the keys!

It took a second for it to sink in. My baby had just locked himself in our car and we have no extra keys to this car. I call Noah who isn't impressed with my lack of discernment. He puts a call into the lock smith ($$$$:-( ) I try to get Barclay to unlock the door. I kiss him through the window leading him to the unlock button. Nothing. Thankfully it was relatively cool outside and pouring rain so I wasn't worried about him getting too hot.

He had a ball, laughing and jumping from the front seat to the back. He thought it was a fun game! Then all of a sudden, he puts both legs into the steering wheel and sits there, honking the horn with his stomach. then he slips in more up to his chest. I freaked out thinking he was going to choke himself! I called 911 and ran and got a shovel to smash the window if he slipped any further. For about 2 agonizing minutes I watched him stuck in that steering wheel. Then right when I was about to smash the window, he got himself out.

The fire department showed up, I looked like a drowned rat, we all laughed at the situation. I think they were excited to have something going on on this lazy Wednesday afternoon in the boonies. They would have popped a window open if he had been in any danger, but he seemed to be OK and it wasn't hot. Then the locksmith showed up and between the three of them and my husband and my father in law, they finally opened the door about an hour after he locked it.

The whole time this was going on, I was saying in my head, "I can't wait to blog about this! I can't wait to blog about this!" I mean if you have to go through something that scary and funny at the same time, you might as well blog about it:-) I was also thinking, "Thank the LORD I cleaned out my disgusting car of the months worth of travel filth!" Can you imagine 45 minutes of people looking in your dirty car? They would have thrown me in jail for locking Barclay in such a hazardous environment! Oh and I found some time to grab my camera and snap a few pictures too;-)

Needless to say, I've learned my lesson and we will also be getting an extra set of keys.

I'm linking up to Myra's Friday Fails.

For the rest of my life I wish I could, in the blink of an eye, bring myself to this exact time in my life. Barclay has been picking little weed flowers for me the past two days and running up to me squealing, "Mama! Mama! Mama!" with the brightest little face. I just do not think that anything can be better than that.

This pregnancy has already been so different from my other two. I find myself saying things differently, like, "We're hopefully going to have a baby in February." or "I'm pregnant." instead of, "Barclay is going to be a big brother!" Or "We're expecting a baby in February." Those statements are just so sure, and I'm not.

I didn't come up with some elaborate and creative way to tell our families and friends. I wanted zero stress so I just told everyone I came in contact with. I didn't worry if one person would tell another before I got to them. Because in the scheme of things, it doesn't matter.

I can't help it but I'm checking at least 20 times a day for blood and every twing I feel in my lower stomach worries me. I'm not talking names and nursery colors, and I don't care if it's a girl or a boy. I'm just taking it a day at a time and trying to not worry.

Another thing that is different is I feel guilty. I feel like, why did God bless me again when so and so has been waiting so much longer than me? I feel guilty that when I put it on Facebook today, some poor woman's heart was stabbed with sorrow that yet another person was where they wanted to be.

But no matter all the little things that weigh my heart down, I can't help but stop every minute or so and smile really big because I have a baby inside of me:-)

Unquenchable Joy!

I am pregnant.

I'm in shock!

I can't stop the joy from overflowing from my heart.

Just a few days ago I wrote this post. I had started my period and was so disappointed. I grieve for about two days, then I decided to move on. While I was moving on, I was feeling pretty awful. The weird, tired, annoyed with everything awful that I have only experienced with pregnancy. I was riding home from a goodwill trip with my mom and sister, we had a movie night planned and I simply couldn't imagine not going to bed at 8 o'clock that night I was so tired. I opted to back out and go home. I thought to myself, I'm either pregnant or I have mono. I had one test left from a three pack under my sink. I had also noticed that my period was really odd and never really got going. The next morning I took a test and was greeted with two pink lines.

I was in such shock and Noah was out of town so I just sat there in awe of what I was looking at. Then started the trickle of fear in my heart. Was I miscarrying again because of the bleeding? The joy that I felt the last two pregnancies had lept forth from my heart and I couldn't contain it. I sat there for about 20 minutes and just felt the fear pushing the joy out.

Throughout the day as I told friends and family the news (I know, I cannot keep a secret to save my life), and talked to nurses, doctors, midwives. The joy started winning.

I've decided to choose joy and to celebrate this life that God has BLESSED me with, however long that may be!

Today I found out I can:

have a glass of wine or 1o

ride rollar coasters

go to a water park and go on the big slides

go tubing

have xrays done

drink as much coffee or caffeine that I want

plan a trip nine months from now

But I wish that I couldn't do any of them.

Silly Little Blessings

So far 2010 has been a very hard year. I have felt like God has be "out to get me" a couple of times. I think just having that mindset in my head has really affected how I view my life and each daily challenge or task. Almost MAKING life harder than it is because of my attitude. Last week I just was so frustrated with life; with mothering, with being a wife, with being a friend. Everything was so hard from the moment I woke up till the moment I lay down. I almost wanted to run; run far away from responsibilities, bills and decisions. Just to be free from the daily grind.

It's funny how God can speak to me in my busy life even if I don't make time for Him. Even if I'm doing something totally mundane.

Today after a frustrating morning of errands, I had one last stop to make with Barclay. The grocery store...my nemesis. I was dreading it and it was apparent I was already set up for failure. I was just waiting for the temper tantrum or the fruit I'd knock over, or the debit card I might have left in the car. We walked in and Barclay's eyes just light up with wonder as he saw all the helium balloons at the floral department.

"Bloooon! Blooon!" He excitedly squealed.

In that moment I realized that I could have moved on and gone to get what I needed. Or I could stop and get him one. Because I was his mother and my job is not only to nourish him, protect him from danger, teach him right from wrong, my job is also to delight and bless him. So I bought him a $2.00 Curious George Balloon which he hugged and kissed and loved on. It didn't stop him from fussing or me from forgetting the main ingredient I needed. But it gave him joy and I had a heart bursting with joy watching how excited he was.

In that grocery store God really reiterated (like he has this whole year), that yes, He has his plans for me, and often times they aren't what I have planned for myself or my family. Often times I get sad or downright mad that things aren't working out. But it reminded me of the many times I have to take Barclay away from doing something so fun (like sticking my barrette into the outlet behind our bed), because I know it isn't best for him. And I have so many other wonderful things for him (like swimming, playing ball, petting a dog). But he can't see past it. He only sees it as I am out to get him and take away from all his fun. But how BEAUTIFUL it is to bless him. And I know God wants to bless me, and DOES bless me every single day. I just need to focus on that instead of the frustrations.

And just when I was leaving the grocery store, the cashier from Starbucks (I had pined after an ice coffee when I came in for about 1/2 a second and moved on), ran outside and brought me a sample of an ice coffee. I must have smiled so big because as I sipped that coffee out to the car and I realized how God must have been enjoying the joy that silly little blessing brought his child.

If you want to feel better about yourselves...

What have I been doing the past couple of weeks?

Swimming at the pool with Barclay

Traveling to Charleston twice

Augusta once

Columbia once

Watching my grandmother die

Burying my grandmother

Spending time with precious family members

Photographing two weddings

Doing 2 other photo shoots

Editing photos for hours upon hours

Celebrating births

Grieving over losses

It has been a LONG couple of weeks.

You know what I haven't been doing?

NOT responding to emails of facebook messages:-/

NOT getting pregnant:/

NOT keeping up with my house/car/yard/garage.

It has overtaken me and has become impossibly unorganized and therefore messy and overwhelming.

Please take a gander at our garage. I'm only showing you to:

#1 As a service to you, improve your feelings about yourself

#2 Motivate me to have it organized and cleaned by Wednesday!

Yes. That is an baby swimming pool full of trash from our cars...

So, if Thursday rolls around and I'm not posting all my bragging pictures of my perfectly organized Garage...hmmm I guess just don't do anything about it because it just means I found something better to do. Probably swimming with Barclay:-)

This is beginning to look a lot like Horders...

When I'm Overwhelmed...

For some reason, if I'm ever really overwhelmed (more than usual...I think I may be overwhelmed till I die), and I just want to sit on the couch and watch mindless TV and let someone else chase the toddler all around and remove him from dangerous situations, I have a little "go-to-solution" that is fun and seriously always gets my house clean and me feeling out of my funk.

It's such a dance and I don't like getting messed up so it is better done when it is just me and Barclay. Or just me. It goes like this:

Watch a mindless show until the commercial break. Pause it (we have DVR the best invention ever). Set the alarm on the stove for 10 minutes and pick a room. For 10 minutes straighten that room. It's actually fun! It's a race and I know it will be over in 10 minutes. It's pretty much amazing how clean a very dirty room can get after just 10 minutes of steady attention. Then I do something for myself. Like get dressed (yes, about half of these are done with my ratty robe flying open to reveal my nekedness) or brush my teeth. Then I go back and watch till another commercial break.

So that's about 18 minutes per room...I have nine rooms...that's about 3 hours. But I will have watched a few shows, cleaned almost my entire house, and usually I'm decently ready for the day...or bedtime...whichever comes first.

That's just my weird but normal way to get stuff done on days I don't want to do a thing. Today is one of those days. So I'm sitting here in my robe, staring at Facebook and trying to get Barclay to stop eating unpeeled bananas, and I thought if I wrote about it...I wouldn't have to do it.

I think I'll watch HORDERS...that usually lights a fire under me.

I just can't write. I have too much in my heart and a lot of fun to be had with Mr Barclay. Hopefully soon the urge will hit, but every time I sit down to write, it's too much.

Goodbye for now.

My sweet Grandmother is at last with her Jesus.

I can't believe she's gone.