Wow, another rough week.

As many of you know, I had a really rough stretch this past couple of weeks.  I really wasn't going to write about it until my sister said "I can't wait to hear what you post on your blog about this week," and then I sort of had to.  The ironic thing is that I had gotten through half a post about the previous week (which is now outdated) thinking that my life was rough and couldn't get any harder.  And now this past week happened and made the week before that seem like cake.  Anyways, I thought I'd include part of my original post in here just for kicks.  (And just so you know, if you don't like hearing about personal/gross stuff, just stop reading. Really, do yourself a favor.)

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Brandon is home from his trip.  Yay, right? Just kidding.

Expectation:

Reality:

Brandon came home VERY sick. So, as he put it, instead of having one more adult around to help out, I have one more baby to take care of.  Taking care of Brandon really hasn't been that bad, and to be honest I'm just glad I don't have what he has, but it still hasn't been the fun-filled week I had imagined. He was so sick that he actually asked for medical attention so we drove out to my mom's house to get him checked out.  She gave him inhaler for his wheezing cough and I thought he was better after that until in the middle of the night he called to me and asked for ice.  I stumbled to the freezer and got him some, then went into the bathroom to find him COVERED IN BLOOD.  It was dripping all down his chest and the toilet looked like a scene from Kill Bill.  It was just a bloody nose, but still a little disconcerting to see in the middle of the night.  And being the sensitive, caring wife that I am, I stood there and took a picture of the toilet with my phone.  I had never seen so much blood before, and this is coming from a person who has had 2 kids.

Speaking of kids, I feel like they should all come with this warning label:

Despite my overwhelming love for sleep, because of our weird schedule this week, I haven't been able to get my kids to sleep before 10:30 PM this week. One night Violet stayed up until 1 AM.  That is sheer torture for a pregnant woman. When I do get to go to sleep, I can't, because when I lay on my side my belly sags and makes my skin feel like it's being pulled off, and when I lay on my back, I feel like someone is sitting on my abdomen.  I still get up to pee 3-4 times every night, and my kids start crying for random reasons at least once during the night.

Of course, all that difficulty sleeping goes away the closer it gets to morning, and I am blissfully sleeping when someone decides to text me and I'm like, "SERIOUSLY? It is 10:30 AM, people! Don't you realize I'm trying to sleep here?!"

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Aaaaaaand this week. 

It started with my computer deciding it had had enough of my crap and dying on me-- with all my recent pictures on it. 

Then I got the cough from Hades that Brandon had.  If coughing isn't bad enough, try doing it when your abs are already stretched to their limits and someone's big fat head is sitting on your bladder.  I went to Target to get some pads for the bladder issues, and the cashier (Mr. Nosyandinappropriate) asked me when I was due and then waved the pads in the air and said, "Well, I see you're getting ready to have the baby already!"  Part of me wanted to start crying and say "I WISH that's what they were for" and part of me wanted to look him in the eye and say, "No, they're actually for when I pee all over myself when I cough, but thanks for asking!" and teach him a lesson about asking questions that he doesn't want to know the answer to.  Night time was the worst part with the cough, since I would wake up 5+ times every night coughing and not being able to breathe through my nose. 

It didn't stop me from spending every possible second with my family this weekend.  My dad somehow pulled off the biggest birthday surprise ever for my mom by flying everyone in for the weekend. I haven't had that much fun in SO long!  I'm kind of mad that everyone is gone now, but it was an awesome weekend.

Except for the part where I wrecked my car.

Really I should not have been driving by myself.  I was sick, sleep deprived, and definitely not operating on full mental capacity and totaled my car on my way to dinner with my family.  At least being 7 months pregnant got me lots of sympathy from everyone involved and I didn't even get a ticket-- but we do still have to get a new car. My parents took me home after the accident and I was still a little bit in shock. They gave me the option to come to dinner with them, but at that point my night had already been ruined and I didn't want to keep everyone else from enjoying themselves.  So I went home and kept it together like a grown-up:

 

And if you want a visual on how my body felt the day after the crash, see the following:

 

Luckily, I'm doing a little better now.  I'm not stressing about every contraction I have and how often the baby kicks and wondering if the baby is doing okay after the accident. My cough has mostly gone away, and my ribs are no longer incredibly sore.  What I'm still dealing with is the shock and depression of making a several-thousand-dollar mistake during what is already one of the busiest and most stressful times of my life.  I've been feeling like I do nothing but mess things up, and the pregnancy hormones are not helping me get over the guilt. Poor Brandon has to deal with all of it, including finding me sobbing in the kitchen this morning because we didn't have any food and I don't want to be an adult anymore.  He's pretty used to dealing with a pregnant, out-of-control Shady and he just gave me a hug and made me an enchilada and I got over it fairly quickly.  Who knows how many relapses I'll have, but if you need to find me this week, I'll probably be crying in my closet with a pint of Bluebell.





Wiped out

I had a really wonderful second trimester.  But that is long over now. 

It seems that things like to hit me all at once.  In my second trimester, I had lots of energy, exercised regularly, and my kids were being really good and going to bed at reasonable hours.  Then along with the start of my third trimester, Daylight savings time started and now my kids like going to bed an hour later, Brandon started going on tons of field trips and the kids started getting sick every time he is gone, and my exercise class has been cancelled for a couple of weeks, leaving me feeling like a beached whale.  Brandon is hoping to defend his thesis in less than 2 months so he gets home no earlier than 7:00 every day.  The worst part of this might be my seasonal oak allergies, which make me want to tear my face off every time I'm outside.  Benadryl seems to work, but I'm pretty convinced that it only works by making me so tired that I will just sleep through my symptoms, which is not really good for productivity. 

On top of this all, it seems that Violet wants to die.  Seriously.  She's normally pretty good at not doing really dumb things but yesterday I was convinced that she doesn't want to live to see her fifth birthday. First, she convinced Charlie that it would be fun to run around with plastic bags over their heads.  I quickly caught her and took them away and tried to explain that it's really dangerous, but she doesn't seem to get why it's dangerous (which I understand, it's just a bag.)  Brandon told me "You could always supervise her and have her try to breathe through one so she sees how dangerous it is," which actually seemed like a good idea until I imagined Violet telling some random person "Mommy put a plastic bag over my face to teach me a lesson," and I really don't want CPS showing up at my door.  Her other shenanigans yesterday involved trying to "unlock the wall" (sticking my keys in an electrical outlet). Luckily I just took them away from her and reminded her that there is electricity in the outlet and she seemed to remember that she shouldn't touch those.  Also, during her bath, she kept spitting bath water at Charlie and when I told her that it's disgusting and she shouldn't put bath water in her mouth, she of course wouldn't listen to me.  She eventually got so much nasty water down her throat that she threw up all over herself, which I'm actually thankful for, because now she knows why she shouldn't do that.

Charlie is starting to get a little more devious but he is so cute about it that I can't get mad at him.  He no longer likes to go to bed.  He's still much easier than Violet, but he knows that I'm a softie and he tries to work his cuteness. After Violet falls asleep and I'm on my way out of their room, he says, "Mommy, wait."  Then I go to his crib and he looks at me with his enormous eyes and says, "I want to cuddle wif you on da couch.  We can wead a book."  And after we go out and read a book, which I can never say no to because it's so cute, I try to put him back in his crib and he says, "Now I want to cuddle on da bed wif Daddy." How could you get mad at that?

Anyways, I'm hoping that the next two months go by quickly.  I'm ready to have a baby and be in a house of my own and have a good income.  For now I'm in between trying to keep myself busy and stressing about being too tired to do anything.