How our family likes to spend Wednesday nights.....

We love the lake. Cant keep us away from it! Its the most sanity we can gather in 3 months to help us survive the other 9 months in a calendar year. Even being nine months pregnant cant keep me away from the lake!

So we had an idea. It was suppose to be very simple: take a short drive to Keystone lake, enjoy a nice calm boat ride, come home and go to bed. Maybe it was divine intervention that we never made it. Perhaps the lake was full of man eating catfish that were espceially sensitive to pregnancy hormones. Whatever the reasoning, it had to have been a big enough deal to compensate for the next few hour's worth of events.

 

"Mom, where are we going? Are we going on the boat? Im hungry. Mom, can i have a drink. Hey look, mom a green tree! Mom.... Mom?...."  Instead of the radio, that was playing in the background the whole night. So every other sentence or two of the story, please remember to add that in there to fully appreciate the mood.

Loaded up and headed out at 5:15 P.M.  Not as soon as i'd have liked but hey, we're on the road. Three miles later cut to Shawn exclaiming he forgot the trailer light wires. (There is an actual terminology for it just not sure what it is!). We make a quick stop at Napa Auto and head to a gas station to fuel the truck, boat, and our kid's hungry bellies. We merge onto the Broken Arrow Expressway with kids quietly eating their dinners in the backseat and mom and dad just enjoying the silence in the front seat. We made it, oh, 5 miles and then came to a complete stop. As far as you could see, there were cars...just sittin'...... waiting on the flashing blue and red lights WAY up ahead to clear off the road so we could proceed with our travel....
.... Kids finish their meals two minutes later so go ahead and cue the constant chatter. It starts right here and continues til 9 P.M.


20 minutes later we finally get going... and continue going.... until a few miles outside Sand Springs were we suddenly lose the tread off our trailer tire. Somehow, we manage to pull over without being hit head on by a semi or old lady swerving to miss the tire tread and come to a stop on the shoulder. After further inspection, Shawn confirms the tread is no longer with us and we say a few Hail Mary's to the lost tread and putter on down the shoulder to the next exit. 10 minutes later we pull into the Sand Springs WalMart Tire Center just assured that we have only experienced a minor set back but WalMart would save us....but they did not. Their tire machine was down. So here we are, in Sand Springs...the time is now 6:30 P.M. The crime rate is slowly starting to increase the closer to nightfall we get and we are just sitting in a parking lot, very frustrated and very unsure of what to do. All we can do is to take back roads all the way to the nearest WalMart in Tulsa which was the one on Pine and Admiral. :) and we have til 8 PM to make it there before they close. Did i mention that nobody is open past 6 PM in the tire industry and that the crime rate was steadily increasing by the minute? No? Well its true.
(You are remembering to keep the background noise on repeat through this, right? Because it was ever so repeating.)

Cut to an hour and a half later, we are still driving down the road.... Waved goodbye to Sand Springs, Downtown Tulsa, and are now entering far, far North Tulsa. The kids are waving at all the nice folks out walking their pit bulls at sunset. Lindsey even comments on the nice old man sitting on the corner with his sign in his lap. She asked if he would want to use her markers. I told her that it was not nice to offer markers to men with signs on street corners and I would explain when she was older.....  *sigh.

I think you get the idea of how the night turned out. We never saw lake water, never felt the sunshine on our faces except through the windshield, and never truly had silence after their Happy Meals were consumed.... BUT we did get another good story in the books and one day, when we're old and senile, our kids will say, "Hey Mom, do you remember when you were 9 months pregnant and we just loaded up and drove around the ghetto all night?"

 Making memories one misadventure at a time.  :) 

WHAT IS THAT?????

One of the most exciting parts of pregnancy is the art of new discoveries. Like last night, for example, I discovered what I thought was my skin exploding through, what appeared to be my veins. Dr Google informed me that my Infrerior Vena Cava was being squished and that little Greyson had brought me vericose veins now! What?!? No way!! :) (bursts out into song and dance) I have ALWAYS wanted vericose veins!! I mean, of course I had SEEN them in magazines at the doctor's office, but i had never seen them up close and personal.... and now I was the proud owner of some! Oh the joy that brings to my face :)  I hadnt planned on EVER whipping out those skirts or summer shorts ever again anyways. This just added to my list of reasons why bermuda shorts would forever be more appropriate for me... Forever.
People say, "Oh pregnancy is beautiful. Pregnant women are just glowing and have beautiful bodies,"  Well, first of all, that is sweat, not a J.Lo glow and secondly, if you've ever seen a pregnant gal naked, you'd vomit uncontrollably and run. At least thats what my husband does?  :) (just kidding, folks)  So, of course, my weekly trips to Target are fine, what with the brand new swimsuits out and all..... and its no big deal when its 85* outside and im huffing along in my sweatsuit for extra coverage. :) .

Today was more of an announcement to the world, versus a blog, about my latest discovery. So, rather than sending out birth announcements, Id like to just simply announce my new friend, Veri Cose Vein. :)

"Paging Dr. Moses...."



Nestled deep in the heart of 81st and Lewis lies a doctor's office that really is not for the faint of heart, or nerves i guess i should say.... However, that is where Lindsey is established, so when she is sick, off we go to the middle of nowhere. Its almost like stepping into Narnia or something...



We managed to snag a 2:00 P.M. openning and we arrived a little early, JUST IN CASE, we could be seen a little earlier.  I was lucky enough to get in line behind a 30 something yr old who was griping at the poor receptionist because "President Obama was not giving her free health care and she still had to pay all these co-pays and her vitamins werent helpin' her back anymore...." I slowly tuned her out because my attention turned to Lindsey who had made a friend! A little boy her age was trying to coax her over to his chair, probably to talk her into nothing but mischevious toddler like things that would have gotten us kicked out of the doctors office. I grabbed her little hand and yanked her back over to me and asked her to be patient and wait in line with me which was probably just as useful as saying, "Sally sells seashells down by the seashore..." 

Im not sure how i appear as a mother to the outside world. I'd hope i look like June Cleaver with my hair all perfect and my dress starched and my children, all 5, still clean and polite in the late afternoon hours. I'd hope we all sit in silence and smile kind smiles at strangers and say lots of please's and thank you's....  However, i have a slight feeling i looked more like an exasperated hippo that could barely sit properly in her chair for gross pregnancy reasons while jerking a hyper and rule breaking toddler down next to me and asking her to "stop actin a fool in public".   *sigh

The nurse called for us so we made our way to the back. Shortcut brought us to the scales where we had to weigh and for some reason take our shoes off for our height. I get the reasoning behind it but really? She is 3 and sometimes we spend 4 hours in the morning alone juuuuuust putting our shoes on.... Does this lady not know the science behind toddlers and shoes? Measure her and deduct 1/2 in for shoes..? "Momma help me buckle my shoe..."  Um no, this kind nurse would love to help you though since this was her idea! Momma has a small buffalo inside her belly and even gravity wouldnt help her reach you!

The nurse asked the usual quesitons...."Has she had a fever? Is she coughing? Is her attention span going to be long enough for me to talk very slowly and softly while i ask you questions and she wanders the room looking for cool speculums to play with?"   

After 20 minutes, just me and Lindsey in this small room, and running out of games on my Iphone to play, Dr. Moses walked in.   I say Dr Moses, only because this must have been the oldest doctor still practicing. I wanted to ask him if he could see the "E" on the chart on the wall himself, but refrained from doing so. He said, "Well now, Lindsey, do you have a bird in your ear? Can i look in your ear?" (Do NOT ever ask a 3 year old if they have a small animal in their ears, please. Because they think they do, and it scares them and they cry and beg you to get it out....just a helpful hint if a missing bird was your choice for a peds distraction during medical school rotations) So after consoling Lindsey and promising over and over there was no such bird inside her ear and it was not going to hurt her, we were able to move forward with the visit. Until, the eye check...... where he decided to start up a rendition of "Where is Thumbkin" and Lindsey proceeded to giggle and scream/sing it at the top of her lungs.... and not stop......  Dr Moses said, "Well it does appear she has pink eye...(intermittent singing from Lindsey).... and we can sure get her on some eye drops...(Me: Lindsey please stop).... Has she been around other kids with pink eye?..... Me: No, but she was around a LOT of cow poop Saturday...... EUREKA!!!!! Then we have us some pink eye"     But instead of saying our thank you's, grabbing a script, and leaving, we had to talk about the peculiar wind we were having and my expected due date and had i considered cord blood banking and was i ready for more sleepless nights and... ( i tuned him out after that.... I had almost FORGOTTEN amongst my already sleepless nights, that in fact, here soon, id have less sleepless of nights, but luckily Dr Moses was sent my way to remind me)   Finally, we concluded and out the door we went. 

I sat in my Saturn, closed the door, and just took a deep breath....  Then i proceeded to Google how to produce mass quantities of this conjunctivitis ointment so i NEVA EVA had to go through this again!

Sweet Child of Mine.....

"Look! I have a belly like Momma!"
Those were the words I heard as she came bouncing down the hall. It brought a smile to my face until I asked her to pose for a picture. I said, "Honey, look like Mommy and say cheese" ..... Do i make faces like that? I bet i do!
They say, "Hell hath no fury like a pregnant woman's scorn", right? Isnt that how it goes? I don't remember hormones when I was pregnant with Lindsey but man, oh man!, do I feel them now. So much so, I spent quite a lengthy time out of my life arguing with someone over the most practical treatment plan for cancer.... For like HOURS! Why? Who knows! I knew I could not convince this particular person to put down the apples and herbs and come join us in the ever advancing world of chemotherapy and radiation but yet, I kept talking.
Same goes with my dear husband. I know I cannot convince him that there is no point in trading his airplane because he will just want to trade it again for something different in two weeks. Might as well not even trade, EVER... But that, too, is pointless. Yet, somehow, there is a little homronal surge inside that says to keep on keepin' on....and so I do. I actually argued with my four year old stepson about the color of his gum yesterday. Seriously, I did.

It is not a pleasant ride that I am on...... Every little thing bothers you. I remember waking my husband up this morning at 3 A.M. to kick the dog outside because I could hear him panting and it was getting on my nerves... Just to give you another glimpse into what life is like for my husband each day of this nine month journey. :)  I can also totally understand why some animals eat their young.... but that is another story, another time.

The life lesson to be learned here is have pity on any pregnant gals you may know. They realize they have horns. They hear themselves very plainly screaming at the lady in the drive through of Taco Bell because they ordered, "No sour scream", and there is clearly a gob of sour cream on their taco..... They even feel their body temperatures rise when their spouses smack their gum  in a quiet church auditorium and fight the urge to Heimlich Manuever it out of them in front of God and everyone else..... They do.....   This is also why i specifically put in bold letters on my baby registry that if you have had to work around me for long periods of time, then thank you for putting up with me!
 I  mean it.... from the bottom of my hormone infested heart.   :)

Food...(I think thats what this stuff is)

I dont like to cook. In fact, i dont even think I can cook. I have tried and it never turns out like the last person made it or how it probably was meant to taste. I like to go on my own cooking journeys and tweak things a little and then i end up apologizing to Shawn for the crispy rice in the casserole or the raw bottom layer of hamburger meat in the next casserole.......

When my kids grow up, im almost positive they will not want their friends to come over to their house for fear i might cook. I love to see the excitement on their faces when I let them pick out which kind of Lunchable or Kid Cuisine they want to eat on for the next 3 weeks on our trips to Wal-Mart. I check out the nutritional value of these dinners and i weight the pros and cons of my cooking, and Kid Cuisine always wins every time. :)

My POE has a pretty nice cafe with all organic and very healthy food. I have been meaning to branch out and try healthier foods but Sonic wins my heart every time. Again, i cant believe i have already gained 40 lbs with this pregnancy.....

I can manage to eat out cheaper than packing a lunch..... thats how i justify it anyways.... I couldnt just eat a PB&J sandwhich, id need some chips, a delicious dessert and a beverage......well that adds up at the grocery store so hamburger and fries it is......   Im actually feeling sick just realizing how much fast food i consume.

Moral of the story is: When youre pregnant, the only thing that sounds good is the opposite of what you SHOULD be eating. Some gals have yogurt snacks, apples, salads,..... I say Nay, hand me a piece of pizza!........

But in all seriousness, instead of waiting til AFTER Greyson is born im getting a 2 month headstart and beginning tomorrow, March 16th, I am going to give up fast food, except for Subway and start eating healthier...... I got a little lazy for a few months but im back at it, because my thighs make noise rubbing against each other when i walk...prego or not, that is NOT ok...... :)

Topic Numero Uno: Pregnancy!

How cliche of me to begin my first official blog with such a topic but i felt the need to draw attention to a few of my ailments/issues and of course it would be pregnancy induced :)

First off, I dropped my kids off this morning to daycare and while getting in and out of this itty bitty Pontiac rental car, i felt like Baby Greyson had descended into my rectum...... Because all my weight and all the pressure just fell feet below my spine. I didnt even know i had a cavity of space down there....but i surely felt it. Every time i get in and out of this car, it reminds me of getting in and out of a Flinstones car you peddle with your feet and literally sits that low to the ground! ... Because when i was at Suburban Chevrolet turning my nice new Vue in for service, of COURSE i looked like the kinda gal who needed a lo-to-the-flo sports car, what with this slimming figure and lack of 5 other children and all. :) So here it is, lunchtime, and im just now feeling normal again, like Greyson is in my uterus where he should be for a few more weeks...... But alas, when I leave at 5 PM, he will make his descent back down into the cavitius rectumus for the drive home in my every so practical sports car.   :)

Secondly, I noticed something new in the mirror this morning. I saw that my arms had developed wings. Perhaps i should have just strapped my kids on my back and used my new-found wings to take us to daycare/work today! Nonetheless, i am now a proud owner of arm wings. When i extended my arm out and did a little "Miss America" wave, it did magical things, this wing did....... I wondered if perhaps i could roll the wing up into my sleeve and stuff it there til i could afford plastics (plastic surgery) but i was late and didnt have time to figure out proper wing placement. I texted my good friend who recommended tricep toning which i will get RIGHT on tonight but what good is a muscle with a smidge of wing still hanging on? *Sigh......

I didnt intend to be in a bikini this swimsuit season but i surely didnt intend to have to tuck things back into place either........

Pregnancy is quite a trip. Just when i think ive mastered constipation, stretch mark sightings, heartburn, etc, something new and even more wonderful shows up.... Just T-minus 11 weeks and counting....then Greyson can come hang out next to me on the eliptical and the operating table of Dr Greg Ratcliff.............