The Mid-break Blog Slog

We went to a beautiful park today and had such a nice time. I took lots of photos and couldn't wait to blog about it all, then remembered that I am on a blog break and I always break my own breaks. But then I started thinking of all kinds of things I wanted to tell about, and here are a few things I just have to get out...

hungry - Constantly, ravenously. I eat a good meal, feel great and twenty minutes later I feel like I am in the middle of a serious famine. It's ridiculous and compounded by the fact that NOTHING sounds remotely delicious. I have no sweet tooth. I have no cravings. I am just STARVING, people.

gagging - (still, even well into trimester 2) There are things like my toothbrush that just send me heaving (just thinking about it!), and there other things like this recipe - I think the cookies are hilarious to match up spam recipes with my spam e-mail folder, but I was so hungry that I checked this one out. Big mistake. *gag (just reading it!)*

tired - bone weary. At bedtime, in the morning after sleeping pretty well all night long. And when I can catch a nap (which has actually happened a lot during the holidays because David is home to cover the kids while I snooze), I wake up feeling like a truck hit me.

grouchy - because I am starving and sleepy! So leave me alone!

blowing a gasket - took on a whole new meaning when the second car (which we got as a blessing for $1 and have come to totally rely upon) did it this week. The tow truck home from the mechanic was better than Christmas for the boys, though. But now we have to talk every night about who needs the car more the next day. Adds to the tired, grouchy.

smokin' in the bathroom - One of the joys of townhouse living. The airvents are somehow connected between our bathroom and the neighbor's. And he smokes. And it reeks. And I am going to start blaming my three-week cough on it. And the grouchy.

ultrasounds - I have had more this pregnancy than my other two combined. One more this Friday. On the one hand, they are fun and miraculous and fascinating. But they seem to be slowing this whole gestation thing down somehow...kinda like the watch-pot boiling thing.

Henry - he's killing me. Both from being completely exasperating and from being completely hilarious...The next few items are all him...

"I want/I don't want/ I didn't get" - His new tactic of making me feel crazy (as if the "I just ate but I'm starving" and "I just slept but I'm exhausted" things weren't enough). It works like this:

H: I want my duck-duck.
ME: Here you go...
H: No! Me hate my duck-duck! (scream-kick-throw the duck-duck)
ME: OK, well, I thought you wanted it. We'll just leave it right there on the floor, then, so it won't bother you. (walk out of the room)
H: (super sad, despairing cries as I walk away) I didn't get my duck-duck! I didn't get my duck-duck!

Note: Duck-duck can be substituted for anything he wants/doesn't want/didn't get, including the chance to climb up into the car all by himself, or a sandwich, etc. And we can sometimes have the whole conversation without the duck-duck ever leaving his hands - he has it all along, but is mad that he has it or swears that he didn't get it. He sometimes makes it even more fun, like when he asks asks asks asks for orange juice the whole time I'm pouring it and I no sooner get the lid on the cup than he wants apple juice. This is all done with an excess of whining, repetition, and general tantrumming and happens at least once every hour of the day. It's driving me mad.

"He hurt my face." This is what Henry says when he means that someone hurt his feelings. Don't know how the mix-up happened, but it finally occurred to me what he meant after I got after Calvin a couple times for hitting or throwing something at Henry's face, when all he had really done was tell Henry to not touch something or to go away (still not nice, but not physically violent, after all).

And finally, my favorite Henry quote, after the opened up body: I was sitting in the backseat with the boys, keeping them sitting flat in seatbelts while David drove home one fine day (Henry had barfed and Calvin had sympathy barfed and their carseats were unusable until we could just get home and hose them down). Our seating arrangement is significant because it is what caused Calvin to suddenly notice my bigger than usual belly.

He started poking it and asking what it was. I told him it was his baby brother and then we got into a conversation (based on my latest ultrasound) about how the baby was positioned in there. I was saying, "His head is about here, and this is probably where his bum is, and maybe his feet are about here..." as I pointed to different parts of my belly. Calvin was fascinated, then Henry piped up, poked my breast (youch!) and said, "Is dat hees elbow?"

All I have to say, is if this baby's elbow is that big, we have more problems than grouchy, tired and hungry.

Oh, and the fact that Calvin now thinks Buford is the greatest name ever for a brother baby.

P.S. I promise that I am not normally a belly-aching pregnant lady. Usually I actually really secretly love that whole expecting thing, and usually I feel rather fantastic during the middle seven months. And I NEVER take it for granted that I get to BE pregnant or resent that I am - it is always a miracle to me. I also know that the heaving and discomforts I am experiencing now are nothing compared to what a lot of other women go through. I've just never felt this run down before. And if I can't tell you all about it, who can I tell? Thanks for slogging through it with me...