I know, I know....

Only two weeks and a couple of days to go until I will no longer be pregnant. Not just not pregnant but never pregnant again.
It seems so close but I gotta be honest, as easy as this pregnancy has seemed to me...it's still pregnant and I still look like a gigantic sumo wrestler and am peeing every 15 minutes. I am tired of my inflated state and I'm ready to meet my new baby. My butt is large and my cankles are getting tired. Someone please put me to bed and wake me on the 16th. K?

Let the countdown BEGIN BITCHES!!

In 24 days I will deliver via c-section baby girl #3. Make that 23.5 days.

That is less that four weeks away.

It has been confirmed that said baby will be a Taurus, which I am very happy about considering the little spit fire I was last blessed with. Phew, mucho reliefo.

We have also nearly completed all those dreaded renovations I was anticipating and will have a couple weeks left to get our room baby ready. I have a little shopping, a little washing, a little freaking out and a little eating left to do and I'll be a mother of THREE!!!

I'm pretty excited for this to be over. The weeks always seem to slowly creep by but the end result gets here so fast you hardly had time to get used to the idea of another kid. Especially after you've already had one or two. I've been so wrapped up in E's tiny little world that I've hardly had time to mentally prepare for Baby A's grand entrance. Of course I've fantasized and thought longingly about meeting her for the first time and feeling that surge of love burst through every part of me, but to truly grasp the reality of life that is about to change my own as I know it can only come with a severed umbilical cord.

I can hardly wait to meet you, little girl. I'm sure you'll take my breath away just like your two older sisters. I hope I have enough of me to go around but I'm not going to worry. You will feel more love than you could imagine and all will be right with the world when you get here.

See you in 24...excuse me, 23.5 days. WOOT!!!!

Frustrations of another kind

As you know, my mother is battling throat cancer. It's been a long, arduous battle with little to no real break or remission. What a scary scenario you're faced with as you age, the prospect of death and what it means to those you leave behind as well as yourself.

What they say is true. There really are no guarantees in life and everything comes with a price. The years she spent fighting the scale and the pills she took to help her along, the drinking, the all weekend long partying, the smoking. The smoking. When you look at her habits in her 20's, 30's and some of her 40's one has to wonder what took so long for her to fall ill. And yet someone else who lives exactly the same lifestyle would continue doing so well into their adult lives and never suffer as much as a persistent cough. Funny how it all works. The goose is picked and the chase to freedom begins.

She's enduring another round of radiation this month. This will be her 2nd time. A different kind of treatment, a more advanced and current method that helps save other "healthy" parts of her from being damaged without need. This is after she had a permanent hole cut in her throat, her voice box yanked and a two month stay in the hospital. And we're not even counting the surgeries prior to these. She's barely had time to fully recover and yet another attack has been planned. The prognosis looks good since this radiation is "precautionary". Whatever that means. One has to wonder, though, with all the times we've heard "this ought to cover it", if this will really be the last jaunt up victory mountain. Will it be a battle won or has she suffered all this for naught?

She doesn't sound the same, she doesn't look the same and her life will undoubtedly never be the same. Will my children be afraid of her? I'm scared at the thought of the rejections from them because we aren't close enough and they have never been around her enough to know her and build a bond except for S. I would hate to see the look on her face if that happens.

I hate what has happened to her. It isn't fair for us to lose our father at such a young age and now be faced with our mother's mortality as well. I feel like I've been waiting for the wrong mother to die. Just as I come to a place of peace with the end of my grandmother's life (I see her as my mother since she raised me from infancy) I am now living with the fear that my birth mother will be gone as well.

It sounds funny to say "waiting" for your mother to die and I certainly haven't been watching the years go by while the haunting thought plagued my mind. It is just that the mother that raised me was always old and feeble in my mind. She was always in pain with rheumatoid arthritis and just seemed closer to death most of my life than the mothers of my peers. I'm not looking for my birth mother to give up and fade away all that quickly either but one can't help but feel the last straw could be right around the corner. You just can't be too sure or too confident when it comes to cancer. It has fooled many people and ripped the carpet out from underneath the healthiest and youngest alike.

So we wait for her to recover and gain some sort of life back. I sit and listen to her husband's bleeding heart because of the hardships the cancer has caused and it is frustrating because I want so badly to take it away, to push rewind and give her a different deck of cards. Nothing I can say or do takes away the depression that envelopes you as you go through such a life changing event. I have no way of relating on a real level and I can't pull either one of them out of the trenches to safer ground.

I try to stay positive and hope for renewal in their lives. I pray for a flood to come and wash away the last 4 years of their trials and let the sun shine on their faces once again without worry. I pray that my babies know their grandma and aren't frightened by the way she sounds. I pray that we all get more time with our mother, but most of all I pray that she gets more time feeling happy. It has been far too long.

Because you can never be too careful...

I mean, it can be dangerous up here by the window.


The ledge is barely large enough for my own bum.


And the books!! Don't even get me started.

Harder than I thought.

This pregnancy thing with a one year old? I had forgotten how much work small children were. I am constantly drained and in pain from head to toe. I'm having my doubts about the next 7 weeks. I am not sure how I'm going to manage serious pregoness along with hell on robeez.

A big problem I'm having is the baby gate dilemma. I can no longer hurdle these anymore, not really. And I don't have the energy to chase away tiny fingers from the water cooler and doggie food. The food I have since moved but the water is a larger obstacle that I can't really remedy. She will either learn or I will die.

Another problem is the constant work surrounding a house with 4 people, a dog, a cat, and two children who come here 5 days a week for child care. The clutter is never ending. The laundry piles are growing faster than I can wash them. The floors are a constant battle. I know that is every mother's problem and I'm certainly not alone, but DAMN!! I'm tired of dealing with the dirt, the hair, the wood debris from the stove, the spilled juice, the play dough, the crackers, the half eaten baby carrots or what ever else, the dust, the tooth paste in the sink, the dirty tubs and messy rooms. I wanna sit down and bawl some days because I simply can not function in the way this family needs me to right now. My ambition, my energy just aren't at their normal mommy levels. Basic hygiene (on my own part) is neglected because that means I won't get a nap while E is asleep. But I need to take a shower at least twice a week, right?

My hormones are going CARAAAAZY!! I'm in that phase of the pregnancy where everything is a HUGE deal and I can't deal with anything not going according to plan. Chaos sends me over the edge and that is everywhere I look. I am in the thick of dealing with an unruly toddler/baby that won't talk and would rather be set on fire than listen to her mother. I'm convinced I'm incapable of teaching her to obey or sleep.

I know I'll make it through to the end. Is there any other choice? Am I the first person to have a difficult one year old while pregnant? Of course not. I will make it one day at a time, sometimes one nap and sometimes one minute. It just seems, at times, that I'm about to overflow with frustration and collapse in a pile of mush onto the living room carpet.