Little Bit of This and That

Well, I feel as though I need to get something out in the blogosphere. I don't think this will be an earth shattering blog, not like any of mine are, but you know what I mean.

This morning I have the privilege of having a day off of work. Hurray me! My midwife is coming for her home visit today. She offered to come later, but I decided to have it earlier. One, I wanted to make it more convenient for her to come, and two, I wanted a freaking day off of work! Oh the lovely vacation day, how sweet it is!

Last night I cleaned like crazy. I had a bit of rearranging to do in the daycare room as my furniture that I bought with some grant money for my daycare came in. So of course everything had to be moved around to accommodate the new stuff. I'm hoping the new arrangement works out. I got most of the baseboards scrubbed and surfaces wiped down, the couch swept, my foamy cushion cleaned up, and it felt great! I still need to clear off the table and wipe down one corner of the room. Also, I spied some handprints on the windows, so I guess I will attack the windows with some cleaner. Ah - nesting - hello - my house needs you. Do you ever notice that when you do deep cleaning, the more you do the dirtier everything looks? I'm just appalled by the filth that we're currently living with. I was able to get my bathroom scrubbed yesterday during naptime and that felt wonderful.

Now I just need to attack the rest of the house with as much fervor. Instead I'm blogging, sipping coffee, and thinking about the luxurious shower that I'm going to take in a few minutes. My back is yelling at me a bit, but I hope to at least finish the daycare room and work on scrubbing down my kitchen. There's just so many piles everywhere. Does anyone else live with PBD (pile build-up disorder)? No matter how many times you clear the same spots over and over the piles just come back? And they grow from one flat surface to another until you have no table space, no kitchen counters, no desk space, you get the idea. It's a very huge problem in our house and has been for years. I can't seem to get rid of it! Perhaps there is some secret that I have yet to stumble upon?

Anyways, I'm looking forward to later today. My cousin and great friend is treating me and my little one to lunch and then we're going to come back here, watch the kiddos run around and play in the yard and the kiddie pool, and just relax. Preggo might have to take a turn in the kiddie pool as it's supposed to get up to 92 degrees today. Yikes! I guess I won't be working in the garden today. I'm hoping to drag my butt out of bed early tomorrow and tackle the garden before it warms up outside. The weeds are out of control! Anyways, I digressed. This great friend has moved here recently from a far away land and I think this is the first time we're going to get to hang for a bit where we're not so rushed for one reason or another. I think we've both had a hectic few weeks, so it'll feel good just to have time to plop down and be and catch up! There's nothing so soothing to the soul as time with a good friend!

I plan to work on my birth basket this weekend, even if that means running out and buying stuff I can't afford right now. I just need it done - for my own mental sanity. Not to mention that as of Sunday I'll be 37 weeks - fair game for my home birth should I go into labor at any point. I also should probably pack a hospital bag in case of transfer. And we need to clean out our car and get the infant seat installed. Also, we still need to finish up Boo's room and I have piles upon piles upon piles of clean laundry to put away in our bedroom before we can even begin to put the cosleeper up. I actually chipped away at the laundry piles the other night, but they're so huge that it doesn't look like I did anything. Don't you love that?

Anyways, wow, this post has turned into some kind of online to do list! I'm sure everyone was just dying to know everything I need to get done!

T has had clinicals for his CNA class all week. He's enjoying them and doing well. It seems that many of the residents as well as the staff really like him. I'm excited for him. He's seen so much success since starting on his journey towards nursing. It's been good for him to experience that and I'm very proud of him to have the courage to break out of a dead end job and walk the tightrope that is the midlife career change. It's not an easy road by any means. We've had several obstacles so far, some in the near future, and some unknowns that will continue to pop up along the way. It's been hard and stressful, but every time I imagine attending his college graduation my eyes start to get weepy. Of course, that could just be the pregnancy hormones! Probably not though - there's something so heartwarming about seeing someone you love succeed and getting to be a small part of that.

So this post I guess turned into a mish mash of everything I guess. Very random - exactly the pointless posting I'm trying to avoid. Oh well - can I blame preggo brain yet again?

Respectfully Pregnant

I've recently started reading the book Respectful Parents, Respectful Kids. I'm not very far into the book yet, but I can tell it's going to be a good one with lots of practical help. I hope to do a few in depth posts on the book as I get further into it. In the beginning, there's much talk about meeting your own needs. This is nothing new. In fact, many of the wonderful parenting books that I've read over the last several years have included a section on caring for oneself. I feel like I've done an okay job of this in the past, but feel very much as though I've hit a wall recently.

The title of this post is a bit of irony in that yes, I am pregnant, but I'm not feeling very respectful at the moment. I've reached that point in pregnancy where I'm uncomfortable and not sleeping well. There is something so maddening about getting up 3 or 4 times a night to pee or waking up extremely early and being absolutely unable to fall back asleep. I don't think I've seen the bags leave my eyes for the past few weeks. My hormones seem to be bouncing all over the place and I find myself getting irritated at the most minor of things. And here's the really crazy part - I'm only 27 weeks, just into third trimester. So I have awhile yet to go. And as for my parenting? Well, I feel like I'm living proof that a mother who is not well rested and comfortable is not very capable of being loving and gentle. This makes me sad. I want so much for my little one to have his feelings and opinions respected and not steamrolled. It's as if Invasion of the Body Snatchers has happened in our household and his mother has been replaced by Screamo Mom!

Of course when I'm not pregnant I've had my screamo moments. I mean, I think we all do as we work to become better mothers. But I feel like this has been a constant for the past week or so. It's interesting that I can be so loving and gentle with my daycare kiddos five days a week. But watch out 5:00pm when it's after hours! And of course the last thing I want my kiddo to see is his mommy being loving and patient with his friends, but not with him! Oh man, talk about feeling mommy guilt! Not to mention, the final three months of my pregnancy are the last three months that he's going to get mommy to himself before sharing with a sibling. Double mommy guilt!

I'd love to hear from others who have been through pregnancy with other children to care for. I'm open to all ideas that will help me to preserve my sanity! This is a first for me considering I obviously didn't have any children at home when I was pregnant with Boo. I know that proper nutrition and exercise of course helps. I admit that I caved to an oreo cookie craving earlier this week. So that has probably not helped. Mmm - oreos - I'm salivating already. I have noticed that sugar intake causes me to be moody and irritable.

It seems that this has been more of a venting post than I initially set out for it to be. Please forgive me on that one.

On a more upbeat note, I've been gifted a blogging award. I will post more on that later. There are some requirements to receiving the award as far as giving the same award to other bloggers and my brain has been in such a fog that I'm still trying to sort that part out. So, when I get my brain defogged and get it done, I will post!

Homebirth

An article on homebirth:

LA Times Article

Most people don't know this, as I haven't said much. My birth experience was way more medical than I wanted. I was induced, which I did NOT want. I pushed for 2 1/2 hours because the first 2 hours I couldn't feel half of my lower body due to the epidural I had. It wasn't until the epidural started to wear off that I made progress with getting my child out. I was stuck on my back in a bed...which is exactly the WRONG position for giving birth. The thing is, I knew this going into my son's birth. I'm still scratching my head as to why I allowed the "authorities" to take over my son's birth when I knew that I didn't want to be induced, I didn't want to be hooked up to a monitor the entire time, I didn't want to be flat on my back in a bed, and I didn't want to be overmedicated. My child slept for days on end and had a really rough time getting going with breastfeeding. I believe all of the medication really influenced this. Of course I can never know for sure, but that is what I believe. It also didn't help that the nurses in the hospital gave my little one formula without my prior consent or knowledge.

I loved watching Rikki Lake's documentary, "The Business of Being Born" and felt very empowered that I could actually have a homebirth someday. Something that I initially thought was only for those "really out there" people seems so logical and well thought out to me now. I guess I'll just add this to one of the many ways in which I've changed over the last few years!