22 March 2012

some brain vomit

In 7 weeks I will have 2 little girls living in my house. That is both crazy and wonderful.

I am beyond exhausted. Seriously. Maybe I just dont remember being this giant and tired and worthless at this point in my last pregnancy, but man! It is a struggle to do anything.

I never sleep. Ever. I am lucky if I get 2 or 3 hours a night. I slept just fine right up until I had Eleri, so I am not sure if it is pregnancy related or not. But sadly sleep alludes me every. single. night. (hence the exhaustion)

Lowri's nursery is STILL NOT DONE! I am not sure if we could move any slower than we are, but at this rate her room will still be full of boxes and storage stuff until she is 2!

Eleri is getting really excited for Lowri. She asks almost everyday if Lowri can come out of my tummy and play with her. I am pretty sure E thinks that her baby sister is going to come out 2 and just like her. She is in for a big surprise. :)

Any kind of food I eat makes me feel sick. Nothing sounds good, even chick-fil-a. It's sad really, because I like to eat (normally) and it really sucks that I cant eat anything.

Maybe that is why I have only gained 13 pounds. I feel pretty ok about that. I mean,I still feel like a giant pregnant woman, but it's nice to know that at least at this point, the weight is still managable.

My plan is to wear my wedding dress for our 5 year anniversary. I will have a 3 month old. Realistic goal? Probably not. It took me 9 months to lose all the baby weight from Eleri. But then again, I gained more than 13 pounds. we shall see.

Wales won the Grand Slam last weekend. Woo Hoo Welsh rugby!! Thanks to our wonderful sling box we could watch it live. E is still walking around saying 'Go Wales' it's pretty darn cute.

I started working 28 February. It is 2 days a week at a preschool. I only work the hours that E is in school so I dont miss out on any time with her. It is a nice job, but again, I am exhausted. I will work up until 3 weeks before Lowri is born. It is hard working and being a mom. I dont feel that I can class as a 'working mom' because it is only 2 days a week from 8.45 to 2.15. Hardly strenuous hours. But it does leave me in awe and wonder about the mom's I know who work full time AND parent full time (Silvy, you are AMAZING!)

I LOVE the friends we have in Tulsa. Not quite at the point to say that I love tulsa, but the friends that we have made are incredible. I would never have imagined we would already have the community that we do. I love it.

I do not like to cook. I dont. I put it off until the very last minute every single day. Which means we end up eating a lot later than we should, but I simply do not enjoy cooking.

Eleri likes to say the prayer before our meals. She usually says "Dear Jesus, thank you for the food, amen" but last night she switched it up on us. "Dear God, Thank you for feeding me, Amen." We asked her where she learned that prayer and she answered "Jesus" Apparently, my daughter and Jesus are in direct communication regarding prayer. As it turns out, they pray that at school, but her little answer was SO sweet.

Whenever we go somewhere, E always wants us to buy double of everything, "one for me and one for wow-we" I love that she is thinking of her little sister.

British mother's day was last Sunday and Rhys got me the most amazing gift. I will take a picture and post it. Seriously, it is beautiful. Also, I really like that we celebrate British mother's day AND American mother's day. After all, I am both. Too bad for Rhys that Father's Day is the same day in both countries.

I am tired and going to nap now. Apologies for spelling and grammatical errors. I am not proof reading or spell checking. good night :)

5 March 2012

10 weeks

In exactly 10 weeks from today I will have another precious, little daughter in my life. Due to the complications of this pregnancy (details here) I will not be allowed to go until my official due date. Assuming all continues to go as well as it has been, which we are trusting that it will, I will be induced in exactly 10 weeks today.

10 weeks.

When I say '10 weeks' the time sounds short, like it is right around the corner. But when I put it into months, saying instead almost 3 months. Well that sounds a bit longer, much farther away. I regularly interchange them, depending on my mood. But regardless of terminology, in a very short period of time we will become a family of 4. It will be incredible and life changing, and we are very exciting. But for these next few weeks and months leading up to it- man! we have a lot to do!

Lowri's room is a pit. still. I have made small steps to clearing out boxes and putting things away, but it is still a long way from finished. My first plan was to have every room in the house settled by the end of January. Then with the diagnosis, that goal was pushed to the end of February. It is now the 5th of March and realistically I can not see it being done by the end of this month either. Pictures need to be hung, E's room organised and arranged, more pictures hung, hall wall pictures hung, furniture ordered, said furniture arranged, more pictures hung. And last but not least, Lowri's room cleared out and made into a nursery. All in less than 10 weeks.

I have spent a lot of time looking around pinterest and craft sights, finding countless ideas for decorating and making fun things for my little one. And then I never do it. I wind up feeling discouraged, like I have somehow failed my unborn child. Does Lowri really care if I hand knit a blanket for her and paint some awesome artwork? No. But apparently I do. Remember this post? I was really fired up and motivated to do some work on the girls rooms. It lasted about 3 days.

It has been bothering me for a long time that I am not able to do all the things I want to do. I could say there are not enough hours in the day or not enough money in my bank account, but what it comes down to is choice. How I really choose to spend my time. I work Tuesday/Thursday from the time E is in school. I then rush from my job to pick her up. I choose to spend the rest of the afternoon playing with her. Monday is our 'home' day. Aside from my weekly doctor appointment Monday morning, we stay home and play. I do laundry and the necessary house type things. And we play. Wednesday morning is Bible study and then outside errands or just more play time. See the theme? play. Friday is ballet in the morning and then either play date with a few people or 'coffee club' with the ladies from my church. Which involves E playing with other kiddos and me having some adult time. It's a win, win situation.

I suppose I could do things in the evening, but from about 4pm on, I am done. There are a lot of things that I can think of that are worse than having a condition that makes you unbelievably tired, so I don't mean to complain. But I am unbelievably tired. It is often a struggle to keep my eyes open in the evenings through dinner. Funny to watch? Yes. Effective for doing craft projects? No.

And there are only 10 weeks left.

So what to do? Recently I have decided to let it go. t doesn't matter what I do or don't make, or sew, or paint. Sure pinterest is awesome, but every person on that site is not living my life. I have a specific set of circumstances as does everyone else. We are all required to live within our set our boundaries. So if I choose to play with E and clean and do laundry during the hours in which I can function like a normal human, then so be it. Projects will have to wait, which is completely ok.

Little Lowri will have this as her nursery bedding; a wonderful hand-me-down from big sister E.



And she will have these little owls on her couch. Sure I may have wanted to hand make a pair, but these store bought ones are just great.



And even though I am not in to matching all the time, big sister Eleri's bed looks pretty much like this (minus the ruffly bedskirt) and I think it's great that their rooms basically match.



Eleri may have said yesterday that she was not sharing her bathtub, toy box or any of her toys will Lowri, but by golly, they can share an awesome bedding pattern!

There it is folks. No more pinterest for me. The vast majority of Lowri's nursery will be store bought or hand-me-downs from E. I am finally ok with that. Which allows me to devote the next 10 weeks to things like playing with eleri and hanging pictures. Yes, it is really that important to hang those pictures!

1 March 2012

go read this

My dear friend Devi posted THIS on her blog today. The links she provides to the articles themselves are interesting and worth a read. Not worth a read because I support their arguments, but should be read because notable academics in the world are actually presenting these ideas.

So follow the link to her blog, and the stories mentioned, and think about what is being said. Very concerning.