You know you’re 9 months pregnant when…

I apologize for my absence. Our house has been invaded by ants and we’re currently staying at my parents. I’m slowly getting over being ill, but I’m still exhausted. I hope to get back into my reading and commenting soon. Just popping in for a quick post…

Brother love!

I’m officially a few days shy of 9 months pregnant. As I said before, we are staying at my parents until after the exterminator comes tomorrow. Husband went to the house to move our clothes out of the closet before they come tomorrow. Yes, we have ants all up in our closet. Ugh.

He picked up some more clothes for all of us. I ran up to his work to get them out of his truck. When I got back to my parents, what would fall out of the bag? Why, my bra of course.

You know you’re 9 months pregnant if you’ve ever kicked a bra up the sidewalk because bending over is not an option. (Yes, that happened.)

You know you’re 9 months pregnant when you bribe your son to pick something up for you with a cookie.

You know you’re 9 months pregnant when people ask if you’re due any day now, but you’re still a month out.

You know you’re 9 months pregnant if you’ve ever had an emotional crisis over running out of lunch meat.

You know you’re 9 months pregnant when you adopt a Hobbit eating plan. (Why yes, second breakfast sounds perfectly viable.)

You know you’re 9 months pregnant when water gives you heartburn.

You know you’re 9 months pregnant when you are willing to let your kids sleep wherever they fall because carrying them to bed isn’t going to happen.

You know you’re 9 months pregnant when you can’t even fit in half of your maternity pants anymore.

You know you’re 9 months pregnant when you crave Reeses cups and cry because your husband gets the minis instead of the regular cups. (There is a different chocolate to peanut butter ratio, I swear!)

You know you’re 9 months pregnant when the only way sex sounds remotely appealing is the hope of jump starting labor.

You know you’re 9 months pregnant when you go to the bathroom, wash you’re hands, and the sound of the running water makes you need to pee again.

You know you’re 9 months pregnant when switching positions while sleeping involves a bathroom trip and rearranging about 10 pillows.

Yep, I’m feeling it!

Wordless Wednesday: It’s a jellyfish!

Here is K’s Jellyfish:

Doing important school work with daddy:

Our pretty new roof on our old house:

How many pillows does it take to make a pregnant lady in the last few weeks comfy?

Still not comfy but 7 (and a heating pad) is a starting point.

How do you contain two kids so Daddy can pick up the living room?

Put on Little Mermaid and make them laundry basket boats.

Brief update…

I went in to my OB today still not feeling any better. He checked me over and determined that I have a fairly bad middle ear infection causing the headaches and dizziness. I was put on a different antibiotic and ordered to rest. I’m not supposed to drive until this is under control…

Well, my car died this weekend. So not an issue… You know it is bad when the mechanic suggests trading it in instead of trying to replace the engine. I’m a little sad. That was my college car. It has my college decal and sorority letters on it. We brought K home in that car. Memories.

I’ve been very blessed by my mom and grandma who have graciously let the kids and I stay with them while Andy is working. No one wants the dizzy pregnant lady stranded in the country with two kids. The dizzy pregnant lady is grateful. I don’t know that I could waddle fast enough to catch them right now and we live almost 30 minutes from our family and the hospital.

So, car shopping is in our future. I’m supposed to be resting as much as possible to try to kick this infection and some water retention. Post Cards are on a temporary hold while I recover.

Baby F should be here in just over a month!

E helping my grandma cook. (And trying to steal cheese.)

The kids and I stayed at my mom's last night. K is a noisy, wiggly roommate.

Checking in

Thursday night started our decent into craziness. I was battling a bad headache and my throat was scratchy. Then our car started having issues on Husband’s way home from work.

Friday morning was spent running around trying to get the car fixed. About half way through the day I found myself waiting in the truck with two restless kiddos while Husband got an estimate on the car. I found a bag of cookies in my purse that my grandma had packed for the kids.

Sweet salvation. Surely cookies will help improve moods!

I was wrong. We had WWIII break out in the back seat because they, of course, wanted the same cookie. They screeched and tried swatting each other from their car seats.

I started getting dizzy and nauseous. I threw up in the parking lot to a sound track of banshee children. Husband got a rather dismal estimate and decided to call around before committing to one garage.

I barely remember the drive home. I do remember looking over and being next to a police car and wondering if I’d get pulled over if I barfed in a cup while at the red light.

We called my OB’s office. The nurse on call told me to go in to L& D to have my blood pressure checked out and to make sure I wasn’t dehydrated.

I couldn’t keep my eyes open in the bright light. I was indeed getting sick and dealing with a migraine. Thankfully, Baby F was fine and my blood pressure was fine. I was given something for nausea and monitored while I ate some lunch and rested for a while. I was also given a shot of morphine and a prescription for antibiotics.

Friday Favorites did not happen because morphine. Friends don’t let friends blog on morphine.

The kids and I ended up spending the night with my parents because Husband’s work couldn’t spare him. I was jittery and shaky all night because of the shot.

Can I just say, Praise the Lord for family…

It is not easy to effectively parent a toddler and a preschooler with no voice. On Saturday morning my mom went out for a while. There was a lot of clapping and pointing.

Husband started running a fever as well and work decided that maybe they didn’t want him in on Saturday. My in-laws were gracious enough to take the torch and offered to let the kids spend the night with them.

Again, Praise the Lord for family.

We both pitifully laid about the house last night. Husband made it to work today but is still weak. I hurt all over, still lack a voice, and keep getting headaches.

Oh, and somewhere in there K face planted on my mom’s tile floor. So concussion scare… And Eily had had some tummy issues, but doesn’t appear to be truly sick.

It has been a long weekend…

I’m taking a couple more days to rest and I hope to be back to reading and writing. I apologize for any lack of coherent thoughts, spelling errors, or typos in this. I just wanted to drop in and assure everyone that we are still alive. Barely.

Just a quick laugh…

One of my friends got bored and decided to plug my blog into something called ‘Gizoogle’. It apparently ghettofies web pages.

This is the result: Da Field Guide to Visitin’ a New Veteran Mom

****Big time language warning… But so funny.

Post Card Exchange- Big send off

We have post cards going out to California, Arkansas, Louisiana, Washington, Canada, Singapore, and the Philippines. 🙂

If you’d like to be a part of out exchange, please e-mail me at: mamamillerparenting@gmail.com

I’ll be sending out a new batch later this week or early next week. We’ll be working on our post card notebook as we get more in!

Wordless Wednesday: Here’s a Puppy

Our burst of summer storms have been lovely for kicking some of the usual August heat, but they have also been bringing less desirable critters indoors. Earlier this week we battled the huge Shelob spider. A few days ago I found a giant wasp in the shower. (Being home alone, naked, and pregnant is not ideal for encounters with demon wasps.) It has been bugapalooza up in this house!

Last night we had some storms come through and spent several hours without power. K fell asleep in the living room with us and woke up at 5:30 this morning disoriented with where he was. Husband went to comfort him and try to tuck him back in for a bit. Being pregnant, I headed to the restroom.

Suddenly I felt this weird twinge in my foot. By the time I made it back to my bed, my whole foot was on fire. I called for husband. I was convinced I had stepped on something or been bitten (probably by a Shelob or demon wasp). Upon turning on the light he noticed a lot of movement.

Our entire bathroom was covered in ants!

Seriously?!

I am allergic to ants, but Benadryl seems to be doing the trick. He found two new, large and hills outside along that wall.

What a way to wake up…

You don’t want to see pictures of the hell bugs we’ve valiantly fought this week, so here is a puppy:

Just look at the puppy, don't think about spiders, or wasps, or ants...

This is actually our Miri the Big Red Dog after visiting the groomers. She was pleased. She even has a blue bow behind her ear.

So, I officially stink at ‘Wordless Wednesday’. I think mine should be ‘Slightly Less Wordy Wednesday’. Have a great day! Avoid bugs. Hug a puppy.

***Shelob isn’t an actual breed of spider. It is the giant spider in Lord of the Rings. We are nerds in this house and love us some Tolkien. All big spiders are Shelob spiders. Or maybe Aragog spiders a la Harry Potter…

Post Card Exchange!

The other day I was checking the mail and K asked me if he had any letters. I handed him a Great Clips ad…

K: It’s a haircut letter! It says, “Dear K, I hope you get a Luke Skywalker haircut. Love, Nana”

I posted this story on my Facebook and Valerie at Atlantamomofthree offered to send him a post card as part of her post card exchange.

He was very excited.

Pretty Georgia post card

He thought it was so neat to get a letter of his own. He helped me pick out one to send back to her son.

We actually bought several fun Texas post cards!

Here is where you come in…

I’d like to try to collect one post card from each state over this year. I plan to make a binder with all the post cards and some printed info on the country/state where they are from. I think it will be a fun geography lesson for K and a great way to teach him to pray for other families. I want to get one from each state in the US and as many countries as we can.

If you have a little one and would like to participate in this exchange e-mail me at mamamillerparenting@gmail.com and we will send you or your child a fun Texas post card! All we ask is that you return the favor and send one back!

Thanks,
Mama Miller (Cori)

The Clingy Kid

I’m using my blog for my own personal gain tonight…

Ok parents,

Who dealt with a super clingy toddler while getting ready for a new baby?

When we had E, both of us were working. So K was used to being comforted by either of us. It made our transition easier because we could easily divide and conquer. I got E because I had the goods to feed her. Husband took K. Everybody was happy, happy, happy.

Now I am staying home full time with both kids and my E is super attached to me. She loves daddy, but does not want to be rocked down by daddy. It is hard for both of us to listen to her fuss when daddy holds her, but she hurts my belly with her toddler wiggles. Plus I feel like she needs to start seeking daddy for comfort to get ready for Baby F.

The toddler bed transition has been a little difficult. We used to just lay her down, but now she can walk out. She is also finishing teething all four eye teeth. So she still lays down when almost asleep, but wants to be comforted for a while first.

Thoughts? Did you have a clingy kiddo that only wanted mom?

In other news, E got her first haircut today:

Just a bang trim, but she still looks like such a big girl.

Always my mom

Nothing incredibly profound tonight. I don’t have enough neurons firing for that at the moment; I just had to share something.

I posted this on Facebook this morning:

I had been up all night with Braxton Hicks and a sniffing toddler, but I had to get some things done today.

I got to church for a ladies’ function and my mom handed me this as I walk in the door:

She’ll always be my mommy. ♥

Oh, and I am happy to report K and I seemed to be back on the same page this morning. He and sister are spending the night with my in-laws. I think a truce and a day apart should help us reset.