I literally googled information on boarding school

today was rough.  so so bad.  so here's a few pictures with a lack of commentary because no one wants to hear how atrocious my day was.

some moms have wine.  I have sugar.

made some homemade thinking putty for Abigail and told her she had to be very careful to keep it in the bag and not let it get messy.  luckily it cleaned up easily from our red chair, leather sofa, kitchen table, and new hand towel. it didn't take too long for me to throw the entire bag away.  I'll try a few more recipes and hopefully find something that works well without getting alllll over everything.

how cool is this?! my mom texted me this picture with the caption "we saw this gravestone in springville last week.  was just reading your blog." seriously, I can't get over it.

honey went to the rockies game with a carrier so he didn't get home till 10 something.  and then, like a good husband, he sat next to me and listened while I laid in bed and whined and cried about my day and hardships of motherhood.

after he went up to bed (he's been sleeping in the bed in the playroom so he's not bothered by Andrew's wake ups at night), he texted me "if you can think of anything specific that I can do for you, I'm all ears and will do it" and that was the most perfect thing ever.  motherhood is kicking my trash right now but I'm at least thankful to have this guy as my partner in crime to help me through it.

"high needs" in vs out

tonight, i was talking to a friend about how brady is about 8.5 months old and he's at the point where he's been out about as long as he was in.  i said something like "the strange thing though is that pregnancy was such a breeze and it just flew by and these last eight and a half months have felt like ffffffffoooorrrreeeevvvvvveeeeeerrrrrr."  don't get me wrong, i love my kid, but holy cow, it's been a really, really long 8.5 months."  my friend has a difficult baby like brady so we can relate.  but tonight i just keep thinking about that.  so i finally did the math.  turns out, today exactly, brady is as old as the number of days i was pregnant (well, kinda... the first two weeks of pregnancy are a freebie because the moment you conceive, you're already considered two weeks along... but whatever).  let's be honest here that being pregnant was way easier than actually taking care of a baby.  and i really loved being pregnant so we can also be honest that being pregnant was also frequently more enjoyable than taking care of a baby.  but, still in complete honesty, i anticipate the next 8.5 months to be way more awesome than the previous 17 months... so there.

brady has not been an easy baby at all.  in fact, according to this article about the 12 features of a high needs baby*, brady is as "high needs" as they come.  apparently "high needs" is the politically correct term for that kind of baby.  i read this article and it was as if someone wrote that article specifically about brady.

like this...

Along with their unpredictability, these children show extremes of mood swings. When happy, they are a joy to be around; they are master charmers and people pleasers. When angry, they let everyone around them feel the heat.  

"When he is happy, he is the happiest baby around, but when he is angry he is the worst baby around. He is still that way, sunshine and smiles, anger and daggers. He has no middle emotion." 

The child's unpredictability makes your day unpredictable. Do you take him shopping and risk a mega tantrum when his first grocery grabs are thwarted, or will this be a day when he is the model shopping cart baby, charming everyone at the checkout counter?

i mean seriously!  how many times have i called him bipolar?!  that's why!  he only knows the two extremes of emotion.  i've always said "he's never just quiet, he's only laughing or crying.  thankfully, this is not the case anymore.  well... not as much.  he's still very much bipolar (although thankfully the percentages have shifted and he's now happy and laughing far more than he's fussy and crying) but he's really evened out into a pretty well adjusted kid!

but that article describes his newborn days so perfectly.
1. "intense" - like how he screamed for the first three hours after he was born and every nurse that came in commented on how loud and angry he was.  and they sent us home with five or six of those green pacifiers.  with abigail, we were sent home with zero pacifiers.  brady, they just kept throwing those our way.
2. "hyperactive" - basically, his body didn't have the ability to relax.  his whole body was always flexed and tense, back arched, squirming and wiggling.  i know now that it was from the pain of reflux but holy cow was it exhausting to try to hold him.  and my whole body would ache after trying to feed him because i was trying to contort myself to keep him latched.  i remember sprawling out after nursing him, my whole body completely spent.
3. "draining" - i think of this more like everyday he would completely suck the life out of me.  he took everything i had to offer, and still wanted more.  sucked me dry until i literally had nothing left to give.
4. "feeds frequently" - with abigail, she refused to nurse more frequently than every four hours and it was hard for me to imagine when other people told me their newborn liked to eat every two hours.  with brady, it was like he hated nursing but wanted to do it all the time.  at the height of his difficulty (thankfully for me, while my mom was in town) brady was two weeks old and would nurse so frequently than in a single hour, i couldn't tell you how many times he'd eaten.  even now, i nurse him about every 2.5 hours (when he wakes and before he goes to sleep), plus give him solids.  and he puts down a TON of food.  lunch today was almost an entire avocado, almost an entire pear (abigail got a few bites of each), and oatmeal cereal with a hard boiled egg yolk mixed in.  for a kid barely on the charts.  i'm realizing now that he just requires more food, and more frequently.  thankfully, feeding him tons during the day has directly correlated to longer stretches of sleep at night.  i think the kid was just hungry.  really really hungry.
5. "demanding" - like the article says, it was never a request to be held or be fed, it was positively demanded.  if i had a dollar for every time i said "i feel like a slave to my child."  he was truly a slave driver.  constantly cracking a bull whip.  and he sometimes (wait for the "unpredictable" bullet point) still is.  when he wakes during the night with a dirty diaper and i try to change his diaper before i nurse him, you better believe he is going to scream bloody murder during that entire diaper change... right into that baby monitor.... which i'm sure christopher appreciates.  so now i nurse him on one side, change his diaper, and then nurse on the other side before putting him back in his crib.
6. "awakens frequently" - i actually don't have that many memories of this because i could never get him to sleep in the first place.  but i do know that even the very slightest thing would wake him up and that he wouldn't transfer from my arms to a crib or anywhere else and that his naps were super short and his night time sleep stretches were frequently only an hour.  so umm, i guess i do remember this part after all.  but really, before i started him on zantac... he never slept.  awake for hours and hours and hours on end during the day.  and i remember so many sleep deprived nights where brady "slept" in the moses basket next to our bed and i could go three hours straight just putting a binky back in his mouth after he'd spit it out and cry.  i was doing that about every 15-30 seconds... FOR HOURS.  all. night. long.  then maybe we would sleep for 30 minutes.  but then it was the binky game for a few more hours.  and then back to day time when i was just up and bouncing his crying self all day.  i remember finally looking at the clock one afternoon and thinking, "how could it be?!  it can't be this late in the day!  he most recently woke up before noon!  that was four or five hours ago!"  if he does poorly in school, i am going to attribute it to his severe lack of sleep during those formative newborn days.  i couldn't figure out how to follow an eat play sleep routine when he would constantly eat, never play, and absolutely downright refuse to sleep.
7. "unsatisfied" - how many times did i cry (with brady) in frustration that nothing i did was working?!  i could try every trick in the book and it was just not enough.  no matter how swaddled, bounced, binkied, nursed, etc. that baby was... it just wasn't enough.
8. "unpredictable" - go back and read blog posts from the early days if you want examples but basically, the only thing constant... was change.  the same thing never worked twice and my mom frequently referred to this challenge as brady's "secret combinations."  trying to figure out which combination of things and in which order... next to impossible.  next to "bipolar," "unpredictable" is actually the word i used most to describe him.  brady's like a box of chocolates; you just never know what you're gonna get.
9. "super sensitive" - brady always noticed even the slightest change in lighting or temperature or sound or the way i was holding him.  he was definitely easily bothered and being around him was like walking on eggshells.  i remember my mother in law coming over and, seeing me holding him, saying "well, he doesn't look too fussy right now!" as she smiled at him.  just that she made eye contact with him and smiled at him sent him in full hysterics.  unpredictable and very sensitive.  the times that i took brady to therapy for his arm, the therapist always noticed how perceptive he was to sounds.  she would comment on it that he obviously noticed a sound from the hallway... normally something i didn't ever hear or notice but the therapist caught a ton of those at every appointment.  also, if i was holding him, i couldn't speak in anything above a whisper or he would start screaming.  you wouldn't really think so, but this was hiiiiiiiighly inconvenient.
10. "can't put baby down" - it wasn't just that he needed to be held.  but he needed to be held by a human, that was standing up, and in motion, that would offer a variety of bouncing, rocking, etc changing on a dime, depending on what brady was in the mood for.  a swing wasn't enough, and neither was a bouncer.  and a sling wasn't either.  none of those things can change every ten seconds.  so even though i had one of the most gorgeous newborns to ever grace this planet, i have so few pictures of it because i could never put the kid down.  although the few times it happened, i took a million pictures.  my mom really got in on it too.  "quick!  he's not crying!  take a picture!"  if he could be put down for 15 to 30 SECONDS without crying, my mom and i celebrated.  that meant that he wasn't crying in my arms, and that the crying didn't start even when he was out of my arms.  though neither of those things really happened more than three times a week.  but ohhh, he was so gorgeous.  he still is, but it's pretty rare for a new baby to be as beautiful as he was.
11. "not a self-soother" - i remember the doctor asking me how brady was sleeping and i said something like "i can sometimes get him to sleep if i double swaddle him (in this very particular way with certain blankets and certain pj's) and have it be really dark and hold a binky in his mouth while cradling him in my arms and bouncing in this very particular way while it's absolutely silent except for me making really loud shhhh-ing noises but then i can't put him down or stop doing any of those things or he'll instantly be awake and screaming again.  and i remember being so proud of that until my doctor made a comment about him being picky about his sleep environment.  ha.  this goes back to him not wanting a swing or a bouncer or anything else (although he did do very well with a carseat when it was in motion)... he needed a human... and about fifty other things, all part of the secret combination, to be happy not miserable.
12. "separation sensitive" - if by some miracle, i could get brady to be content in my arms, he would immediately go into full blown panic mode with even the slightest change (walking on eggshells much?) occurring that might indicate that i was about to leave him in any way.  if my body tensed in a different way, he would sense that i was about to place him in his crib/carseat/swing/bouncer/someone else's arms and he also learned to recognize his bedroom and dark rooms in general to the point that if i had him quiet and content in my arms and i walked upstairs, he would start crying as i stepped over the threshold into his dark bedroom because he sensed that i was about to place him in his crib.  even now, he's really great playing independently, but does best when i'm either always in sight or never in sight.  if i have him playing in the great room and i'm putting laundry away or cleaning around the house or doing anything that requires me to go from room to room, frequently coming and going from his sight, he's going to freak out and fuss the whole time.  it's like every time i leave he thinks i'm never coming back.  DUDE!  I ALWAYS COME BACK!

so as difficult as a brady was as a baby, i am grateful it has made me so appreciative for the kid he is today.  he's got his fair share of fussiness but he smiles so so much and it is so easy to get tons of those real deep belly laughs out of him.  people always comment on what a happy baby he is and i typically just smile and say "he's come a long way."  i know people don't think twice about it when i say that, but for me, it's special.  he really has come such a long way.  as a mother of just abigail, i would have looked at my current self with pity like "your child nurses how often?!  and still doesn't sleep 12 hours at night?!  and needs a binky 24/7?!"  but my experience with brady makes me grateful that even though he still nurses frequently, it is enjoyable for both of us.  and even though he doesn't sleep 12 hours straight at night, he's only waking up once and often has an 8 or 9 hour stretch in there... getting over 12 hours total.  and even though he has a binky in his mouth more often than not... he is happy!  forget the secret combinations... binky = independent, happy baby.  it's straight forward and we love it.

i really love this kid.  he has taught me so much and really, he is the most gorgeous, laughy kid everrrrrr.  raising him is like continually unwrapping a present and he's only getting better with age.  i'm so excited for all the days we have ahead of us.

*i found this article through this blog post... which really could have been written by me, it soooo perfectly described my own experience.  like word for word. almost... there are some minor exceptions.

the terrible horrible no good very bad day

*i'm not quite sure why anyone actually enjoys reading my blog posts - unless they enjoy major overshare - but this is one of those posts that is unhappy and really not worth your time*

my story starts last night when my husband fell asleep on the great room floor sometime between 8 and 8:30.  this really isn't that uncommon for him to fall asleep that early or for him to fall asleep somewhere other than our bed, but this time it made me mad mad mad mad.  he was semi-awoken sometime after 11 to the sound of me yelling at our two kids who where each crying in their respective cribs.  i really love my life but it is not always rainbows and butterflies over here in the hillier home.  anyways, we all eventually went to sleep and we all slept until morning.

this morning i woke up sometime around 8:30 to the sound of abigail crying in her crib.  crying because she "spit up."  aka, her pj's and her crib and all her stuffed animals and blanket and crib bumper and everything else... soaked with some sort of mysterious clear vomit.  while i was getting her changed, she kept gag/burp/vomiting and no matter how many times i said "spit up on the blanket!" she would try to catch it in her hands, panic, and then use my hands instead.

then brady woke up.  i told abigail to lay her head on a blanket and to use that if she needed to spit up.  so i go in to get brady and he has the fullest diaper ever and is soaked head to toe.  so i get him changed and sit down to nurse him.  he'd only been nursing for a minute when abigail came in.  and then the whining started again... which meant one thing.  she came over and started spitting up.  in. my. hand.  and while my cup runneth over, so did my hand.  onto the glider.  while i was nursing brady.  so one hand is holding brady and another hand is trying to catch abigail's vomit.  i wipe it on the blanket hanging on the glider and tell her to use that to spit up.  and then brady decides actually watching this fun is way better than nursing so i put him on the floor and try to help abigail.  the next thirty minutes was abigail "spitting up" everywhere but on the millions of blankets i gave her as options and at one point, i literally tossed brady on the floor to come to her aid.  luckily he didn't cry and actually he rolled himself over to abigail and placed a comforting hand on her back while she was finally leaning over a blanket.  one plus of not having much hair is that i didn't need to hold it out of her face.  do i get optimistic points for that?

so then i stripped brady's bed, abigail's bed, and gathered up all the blankets, and stuffed animals, and that crib bumper and carried everything downstairs to the washer.  it didn't all fit but i started a load.  brady was needy, abigail was sensitive and throwing fits.  eventually i put her in front of the tv and put brady down for a nap.  i attempted to get in the shower but that didn't happen because abigail said she wanted to shower too.  but she needed to eat first so she could have a bite of cookie she saw me eating.  and during this time i stepped in a whole lot of wet carpet which was disgusting.  the clear vomit strikes again and ABIGAIL FOR THE LOVE JUST PUKE ON THE BLANKET AND NOT FOUR INCHES TO THE LEFT OF THE BLANKET ON THE CARPET!!!  so i got her watermelon  and she ate it and i gave her some cookie but she threw a massive tantrum because she wanted an entire cookie.  ummm no.  that tantrum lasted for at twenty minutes and then started up again when we got out of the shower.  now it's sometime between noon and 1 and i'm pretty sure abigail's stomach is feeling better.

the day kept going down down downhill and three loads of laundry later (and there's actually more dirty clothes in the washer just waiting for me to add more to make a full load) and scrubbing vomit and pee out of the carpet (i get that she's not feeling well but does that make you turn into a puppy and forget to go potty?!  i mean, two times in one day?!  she's only done this like three times EVER), i'm just a little bit done with today.  when my christopher texted me that he was on his way home at 5:30, i told him the plan was that i was going to bed and i would see him and abigail and brady in the morning.  and he was a-okay with that.  he knows he's in the doghouse.  he also knows i'm publicly shaming him right now.  accountability, right?!

the only bright side to my day (okay, that's a bit dramatic... there were some sweet moments mixed in my day) was taking dinner to this family in the ward that i've never met before and to one of my friends in yw.  i didn't even get to meet that one family but talked to the husband on the phone twice and he texted me again later to say thanks and the wife was texted too.  and my friend that i talked to and hung out with when i dropped the meal by... i love her to death and it made my day to spend that time with her.  i haaaaaate taking meals to people.  i'm so insecure about my cooking and what if someone doesn't like what i made and if it's too healthy or too unhealthy or not filling enough or blah blah blah and i just get so stressed about it.  but tonight?  it's superficial but it helped improve my night with the gracious thanks i received for these simple meals i made.  i most certainly was not getting the "thanks for keeping us alive another day" gratitude from my bodily-fluids-from-every-orifice children.  today was a bad bad bad day (i mean, i yelled and THREW abigail's hair bow across the kitchen because it wouldn't stay in her hair) but was saved by small and special tender mercies.

here's to tomorrow being a better day.  it'll be better, right?  it has to be...

i'm an optimist

and an idiot.

an optimistic idiot.

last night brady went to sleep just great without his swaddle and i was loving life.  but of course he woke up at midnight or something (his night time sleep has been sucking even worse than usual since we got back from atlanta and lately he's been waking probably every 2-3 hours during the night.  seriously, what is up with this kid?!?!) and instead of all out crying, he was just fussing a bit.  so i thought to myself, "i wonder if he would be able to cry it out/go to sleep without nursing alright without a swaddle because he'd be able to move more and get his binky if it fell out" and so i let him keep fussing.  but then it turned to an on/off cry that lasted for 30 minutes and then stopped.  score!  he fell back asleep!  that was easy!

not the case.  he hadn't fallen back asleep.  i know this because he started crying again like three or four minutes later.  anyways, i let him cry off and on until something like 1:30 (going in to give him a binky a time or two) when i was a tired, guilty mess and i nursed him and got him back to sleep (with one arm swaddled).  the other night feedings were pretty typical although he seemed more awake than usual and had some anxiety about going back in his crib each time.  this morning he refused to take a nap.  just would scream in his crib... even fully swaddled with a binky.  he would even start crying just if i walked in his room with him (that used to be the case when he was younger and was a nightmare to get to sleep) and even just stepping over the threshold of his room, i could feel his breathing accelerate before he went into full panic mode. 

so at 12:45... FOUR WHOLE HOURS after he'd woken up for the day, i finally got him to sleep by swaddling his one arm, rocking and nursing him, and then keeping my hand on his belly while he fell asleep in his crib.  and then he woke up a whopping hour and fifteen minutes later.  an entire hour shorter than his typical naps.  his morning wake times the past two weeks have been 30 minutes or less... almost just like a night feeding.  before that they were at least an hour and a half but i think lately he's just been in a growth spurt or needing more sleep or something so i've just been rolling with it.  anyways, four hours in an insanely long time to be awake.  and the fact that it was followed by a short nap didn't help anything.  after 2.5 hours i put him down for another nap.  same as before, swaddled one arm and rocked and nursed him in the glider before putting him in his crib.  i stood in the room (with my back to him) for a minute or two before i left and he fell asleep without crying.  but it was only 45 minutes long.  and so now it's 5:30 and my kid has only slept for 2 hours today.

which brings me to my next issue that he's crazy fussy and needy even when he's awake.  i think it's probably a mix of exhaustion from sleep deprivation and fear that i'm going to abandon him again.  at this point, those are both very legitimate reasons to be crabby and anxious.  i know... it could be a complete coincidence that his terrible day is following the night i let him cry (i mean, his monday was pretty terrible too) but i'm inclined to think it's more cause and effect.  i mean, he's fussing or grunting or crying if i'm not holding him (standing up) and even with a binky in his mouth, it's just not always enough.  after hours on end of grunting and crying and yelling from this boy, i've got a serious headache and am wondering how i ever survived his formative months because it used to be worse than this.  all day, every day.  and night actually.

the problem that comes from this?  i'm tired from not getting to sleep until 2am, i'm worn out from only having so little time to myself today, i'm dealing with this awful headache from the constant crying, and i'm taking it out on abigail.  twice today i've yelled and made her cry.  probably a half hour after i apologized when i was still heavily wracked with guilt (still am), i asked her if i made her happy.  "yeah, but sometimes you make me sad."

my heart is broken.

so today goes down as a serious parenting fail.  i'm just trying to rip off the bandaid so to speak, and teach my kid sleeping habits that will make us both happy.  instead, i'm making them cry and giving them major attachment issues.  lose, lose, lose for everyone involved.  who entrusted me with these kids anyways?!

tomorrow will be better, right?

i swear it can't possibly be any worse.

On the wrong side of the crib

baby girl woke up crying this morning.  that doesn't happen often, and when it does, it means we're in for a rough day.  a normal day is when she wakes up and happily plays and sings in her crib for an hour or so.  bad day is when she's crying about who knows what before her eyelids have even popped open to let in the light of day.  brady, on the other hand, is one happy kid.

laughing, smiling, cooing?  check, check, check.

not laughing, smiling, or cooing.

"it's a raccoon horse!"  as a mother, that's my sign to break out the animal flash cards a little more often.

instead, we broke out the pool.  which has been sitting, fully inflated, in our basement since last summer.  talk about a quick and easy setup.

bumbo and sophie and this kid was content to just hang out and watch the action.

we saw a mowing tractor drive by and baby girl went to check it out.  i told her to be careful and not fall over the fence like last time.

coppertone baby?  this swimsuit was huge on her last year but fit great when i put it on her this year.  i did not take into account that the swimsuit wouldn't always be dry.  whoops.

this is the guy on the tractor.  i'm used to privacy in our back yard so the close proximity kinda  left me feeling a little violated.

need a closeup?  you're welcome.  he went back and forth about six or seven times before i finally decided we should just go inside.

that's a face that has recently been crying.  and a naked body that is wearing a fitted crib sheet.  she was crying because she decided she wanted that sheet on her crib for nap time instead of the one already on the mattress.

i thought i loved the free kindle app on my phone.  but i had no idea until i put a little P&P on there!  i have a testimony that everyone needs the scriptures on their phone... and P&P as well.

don't you want to just jump into that picture?!

oh, you're still crying?  of course!

this hat keeps disappearing and then resurfacing at the oddest of times.  after nap, she put on her swimsuit, this hat (inside out) and insisted on sunscreen (which was totally unnecessary because it was 6:00 and the pool is on our covered patio (best place ever to put a pool... no sunscreen required!  unless your kid throws a fit about it.

you're still laughing!  he really has transformed into the most delightful little bundle.  we love him so much.

and since i taught her how to open and close the screen door (to not let bugs in) my child has one more thing to be ocd about.

still crying?  great.

just two loving siblings... hanging out with some pistachios.  and as long as i give her the easy ones, abigail can open and eat her own!  now that is a milestone to celebrate!  "child can open and eat pistachios without assistance."  bonus points that she puts her shells in the designated bowl.

sometimes i get her hair wet like this just for kicks.

have i mentioned that she also has started refusing to eat anything [that resembles a meal - requires sitting down or contains anything of nutritional value] and so that's just a lot of fun too.

so she cried when i had her eat these two bites of avocado.  and then of course she cried that it was all gone and actually we didn't have anymore.  always a win win for everyone involved.  she's really precious.

when life gets you down

life is such a rollercoaster.  and so very busy.  right now, i'm loving all the usual stuff but currently feeling so overwhelmed with all the stuff i wish i could do or do better.  i really do just feel like i'm on a roller coaster all the time because i can feel awesome and accomplished in the same week as i feel down and discouraged and i know that most weeks will be like that just with varying ratios.  so lately it's been getting overwhelmed with the things i want to cross of my house projects list (like organizing, landscaping, and decorating) and discouraged about sucking at my calling, not even having time to keep in touch with family or friends of any sort, and not being a better wife a mother.  i feel like i'm not doing a good job "connecting" lately... like i just haven't been present.  and i wouldn't call myself a perfectionist but i'm enough ocd that there are way too many things that just don't happen because i keep putting them off until i can do them well.  like blogging.  so many posts that just never get finished (or written at all) because i put it off until i'll have time to add pictures and really tell the full story.  which never happens these days.  especially since my blogger app has been broken for a few weeks (that's what started the sever decline in posts) and getting on my computer at night before bed to blog doesn't work because i'm so sleep deprived that i have no brain or i just have emails to answer, lessons to plan, and other crap that needs my attention.

sooo, don't worry about me but maybe send a prayer my way?  i go through these phases often enough that i'm well aware that it's not the end of the world but i also feel like i'm just trying to stay afloat until this passes and more optimistic thinking returns to me.

a few random things to note:
brady's sleep has been much improved since we started cry it out a week ago and i'm honestly shocked at how much better he's been doing since i've taken a pretty soft approach to it.  my biggest thing now (because as i said, i'm constantly feeling overwhelmed with stuff) is coming up with a game plan to ditch the swaddle and the binky while keeping him headed in the direction of going down for naps and bedtime without a fuss and keeping the night wakings to a minimum and keeping naps at their optimal length.

i mentioned a while ago (in this post) that abigail was in a phase where she was just soooo agreeable.  she could tell me she wanted a treat and i would say, let's eat this sandwich instead and she'd instantly respond "okay!"  and that was the glorious "okay!" stage.  i call it my time of plenty.  because now we're in a time of agreeable famine.  her current phase has been going on for at least a week and i call it her defiant stage.  she'll casually ask me "do you think it's windy outside?" and i'll look outside, see the trees aren't moving, and say "no, it's not windy outside right now."  and then she responds with a "IT IS!!!  IT IS WINDY OUTSIDE!"  it doesn't matter what i say, it will be wrong.  "is it getting dark outside?" "no, baby girl, it's just a little cloudy, it'll get dark later though." "it IS getting dark outside!  it is getting dark RIGHT NOW!"  i can offer her milk and she'll say "i don't want milk!" so i say, "okay, you don't have to have milk, that's fine." "I WANT MILK!" okay then, here's some milk "I DON"T WANT MILK!!!!"  so everything is a "IS NOT" or a "DO NOT."  sometimes it's funny and sometimes it just wears on my patience.  but the part that amazes me is just how drastic and noticable these phases are.  constant okay or constant defiance?  where's my happy medium?

we're going on a little roadtrip to utah.  it'll be our first trip with brady and i'm pretty nervous about it because we'll be staying with people (like not by ourselves in a hotel).  i'm pretty nervous.  it's one thing to deal with your kid's crying and another thing to inflict it on your close friends and family.  combine this with baby girl's defiant stage and i'm sure honey and i are going to be some award winning parents of the century.

deep breaths.  deep breaths and lots of prayers.  eventually baby girl will be agreeable, brady will be happy, and i won't be overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy... right?!  we'll just wait it out.  i'm a patient person.  i can do this.  and speaking of patience... points to me for demonstrating herculean patience with baby girl tonight.  for over two hours.  that is a loooong time for patience of this magnitude and i did it.  there is hope for us all!

if you give a mom two kids

we're pretty crappy about having an actually family home evening on monday nights.  we definitely spend time together as a family... but it normally doesn't include a formal spiritual lesson.  well, we actually had one a few weeks ago.  honey shared with us two mormon messages videos.  one on being a mom and one on being a dad.  it turned out to be pretty prophetic... at least for me.  especially because when i thought things were really going to pick up with brady, he sprouted a tooth and his nighttime sleep regressed, daytime sleep regressed, and fussiness increased.  if he was an only child, this really wouldn't be a problem.  and as it is, it's still not a huge deal because my life is still so blessedly easy.  but the thing is... it's frustrating to me.  it's frustrating that i used to be able to do more and that i want to do more... but there is literally not enough time in the day to do everything i would like to do and save my mental sanity.  blogging is my therapy and right now... that's what i'm doing.  between popping a binky in brady's mouth every four seconds.  dude, we both know you're gonna throw a fit the second that thing leaves your lips... so keep it in your mouth!

y'know those laura numeroff books?  if you give a mouse a cookie, if you give a moose a muffin, if you give a pig a party, if you give a dog a donut... those.  that's been my day.  around noon, brady was sleeping and it was gorgeous weather so i thought it would be fun for baby girl to play outside.  well... it took a while.  took a while to go potty, get on appropriate play clothes and shoes, get an easter treat to take outside with her, and gather up the trains she wanted to bring, and probably at least five other things i can't even remember.  it's a process.  during this time, my honey texted me with the location of the pants he needed me to fix ("hanging in the closet" still took a lot of looking) and baby girl insisted on helping me find those before going outside.  so finally she got outside and i had pants.  i set myself at the kitchen table to i could watch her play in the backyard and then i realized i didn't have the right thread.  so i came back with the right thread, got it cut to size, hadn't even gotten my needle out yet and... i hear brady waking up on the monitor.  makes sense because he naps for about 2.5 hours and it had been 2h and 23 minutes.  i just hadn't expected it to take so long to get pants and baby girl outside.

so i told abigail that i would just run upstairs to get brady and be right back.  i sat back at the kitchen table and told her again, "it'll just take a few minutes for brady to eat and then we can all go to the front yard and you can ride bikes on the driveway!"  she was very pleased.  well, when brady was mostly done eating, he started pooping.  and it went on and on and on and on.  "don't worry baby girl!  i'm just going to run to my room real quick and change brady's diaper... want to come?"  so she came.  but as soon as i unzipped his sleep sack, i knew this was a job that needed to be taken upstairs to the changing table.  it was maybe his worst blowout yet.  it was of epic proportions.  so then i had to fill up the bathtub and bathe the kid.  i got him in a fresh diaper and new clothes and he spitup and of course it got on his bath towel and new clothes and even his freshly washed hair.  got him cleaned up again and took a load of laundry downstairs while brady cried upstairs.  then i got him and went downstairs again before realizing... he's already been awake for an hour... he's going to get fussy and need to nap soon and now it's 1:30 and abigail will need to eat lunch so that she can nap too.  after explaining to baby girl that there was no time for bikes on the driveway, i got her bike from the garage and put it on the patio.  i went back inside to get brady and somehow she was riding her bike on the grass.  noooo idea how she got it down there by herself.  especially so quickly and without getting hurt.  so confused.  so we all hung out outside for five minutes and then i got her set up with her bike on the patio again and i worked on stain treating brady's clothes and getting everything in the washer.  while i was doing that, abigail decided she wanted to hang out with us instead and helped grab brady a binky because he was crying again and my hands were covered with poop and stain chemicals.  she's a great helper.  then i grabbed her a banana and a sippy and sat her at the table to eat while i took brady upstairs to nap.  that took a number of attempts and when i came back down, baby girl was already running to the stairs saying she was ready to nap.  i asked her if she finished her banana and whatever and she threw her arms up at me and said "take me to sleep!"  man, i guess she was tired because we did her whole nap routine (while periodically giving brady his binky and thankfully he eventually went to sleep) and she went right to sleep... didn't even play for a minute... or get naked.  so i came downstairs, heated up a taquito from last night, ate that, brought my sewing stuff to my bed and was pulling up the scriptures online to listen to while i was sewing when... i heard brady crying.  he frequently wakes up at the 45 minute mark but goes back to sleep right away with a binky.  not today.  after several attempts i just grabbed him out of his crib.  i couldn't help think of how my day seemed like that mormon messages video.

so i brought him downstairs to my bed and i nursed him while i watched the mormon messages video... and cried.  i guess really i just listened to the video while i looked at brady.  he was so intently looking into my eyes and he was holding my finger with his hand on my chest and was just precious and calm.  i love when nursing him is like that... not him arching his back and screaming and kicking... because we still get plenty of that too.  it was a precious moment.  elder holland's words are so encouraging.  also they made me think of what my christopher said to me on monday after i was almost in tears telling him that aside from keeping the kids alive, the only thing i'd accomplished in the entire day was a trip to walmart... which was so depressing because it took my whole morning to get ready, a ton of time while we were there, and then all afternoon to recover from the trip, kids getting late naps, and groceries not even getting completely put away.  he told me that he was impressed with what i had done that day.  that a trip to walmart was a great thing.  he said that keeping the kids alive every day is the only thing i need to accomplish every day and "everything else is just gravy."  i go back and forth on my feelings on this but i know it's at least part true.  there's too much i consider "absolutely necessary" when really, there are actually very few things (like keeping the kids alive) that fall into that category.  i constantly feel like i'm not doing enough when i know it's not for lack of trying (i helped set up, clean up, and speak at our new beginnings program when i freaking had the flu with a fever of 101 and the worst full body aches of my life).  i feel like been learning and relearning this lesson about every five or six days for the past few months, ever since brady was born.  which speaking of... he's finally asleep again... and now i can go fold that laundry in the dryer.  after that maybe throw together something edible for dinner, pick up the house a little bit, finish icing the cake i made for our neighbors (let's all pray they'll be home this time!) and maybe shower or at least get clothes, hair, and makeup done before my friend's baby shower tonight.

seriously, how am i supposed to have five kids when i already feel like such a failure with two?  i need another pep talk with my dear weed.  although i did talk to her a bit last night... it may have been about nasty cherry vanilla coke concoctions, bad math and losing two cents on a deal, quick trip, racism, and a husband carrying his amputee wife into a QT... among other things.  maybe i'm only hanging in here because of that phone call and talking to my sister emmy and skyping with my wonderful carolyn.  yes, sara snow, it's the little things.

and one last thing because i can't figure it out for the life of me.... how do moms with toddlers get bored?!  like all those mom's that pin ideas of things to do with their toddlers because i guess they've got just so much time on their hands?!  i was totally bored when abigail was a little baby... but not now.  i've gotta be missing something because i can't even seem to get my kids outside for a few minutes... much less make super cool forts and creatures out of cotton balls and pipe cleaners and homemade playdough.  ohhhh, someday.

trying to be mr. rogers

y'know how sometimes your day can be going just fine and then two hours later you want to punch something and you wonder how things got so crappy so fast?!

the morning was good.  even though baby girl woke me up at 8, i tossed her in front of the tv while i was able to get a shower before brady woke up.  everything was going pretty alright and we were only a few minutes late to story time at the library which is a pretty big feat.  instead of going to walmart after the library, we headed home because it was super windy and had started snowing.  the parking lots are bad enough after all the snow we got this weekend and we didn't need that much anyways and this was the final straw.

my mom called on the way home and we talked about this coming weekend and when i got off the phone with her i saw it was only one.  that's when things went south.  my first thought was "i have so so so much to do, i should just give baby girl her lunch right now and get her down for an early nap."  that's the thought i should have gone with.  instead i went with thought number 2: "i should try to be a good mom and a good neighboor and have abigail help me make and deliver a treat for our neighbors so we can meet them and welcome them to the neighborhood."  bad, bad, bad idea.  well... actually the idea was nice... it just didn't pan out.

so here's what happened between the hours of one and three...

i had abigail help me make rice krispie treats.  she was being cute and helpful and we made a double batch so that we could make a big plate for the neighbors (they have a lot of kids) and still have a little to keep (i promised baby girl).  well i got them all arranged on a plate and we were literally about to walk out the door when i went to grab brady's carseat (he was still napping in there from our library trip) and i realized he was awake and getting fussy.  since he was long overdue for a feeding i thought it would be best for me to just get him out and feed him real quick and then we could head over.  well half way through his feeding he got a blowout.  of course.  it's the age of blowouts... abigail was the same way.  so i took him upstairs and got him a fresh diaper and clean clothes and tried to finish feeding him but he wasn't interested anymore and it dragged out way longer than it should have.

when i came back down, abigail was eating the leftover rice krispies off the spoon and life was still good... just a few minutes delayed.  then i told her to get down from there because we were going to deliver our treats to our new friends.  that's when she informed me that "thomas got wet."  ugh, seriously?  that's a whole vent for a potty training post of its own but anyways, i had her go potty (takes foooorrreeeevvvvveeeeerrrrrr because everything is "i do it myself!") and ran upstairs to find her a new skirt that didn't require an entire outfit change and thought to myself... okay now, this is getting annoying but we can do it!  we will get out the door to deliver treats!

so as we're leaving i taste a bit of the rice krispie treats i saved for us to snack on... umm, they're rock  hard.  like bricks.  what the heck?!  if they were just a little bad, i probably would have taken them anyways and just said sorry they didn't come out right.  but they were HORRENDOUS.  like their kids would probably chip a tooth or bite their tongue off trying to eat them.  so then i thought, well we will still go over and i'll just explain that sorry i couldn't bring the treat i'd prepared.  but ummm, lame.  inviting myself over to their house empty handed just to say hi?  awkward.  so it was back to square one.  i got out a new pot and new pan (didn't have time to wash everything and too annoyed to do that anyways) and decided to just do a single batch in case the double batch last time was the reason they turned out badly.  made them and they turned out perfectly.  cut them up, arranged them on a plate, covered them with saran wrap, looked out the window and... it's freaking snowing again... and blowing snow all over the place... like crazy.  ugh.  so i put on a sweater and got a puffy coat on abigail and brady was already still bundled in his carseat just hanging out and we were out the door.

and then baby girl, since she hates the wind and i couldn't even blame her this time, wouldn't leave the garage.  probably a good thing because the wind was so strong it might have pushed her over.  so i picked her up and carried her, and brady's carseat, and a plate of rice krispies that i'm thankful didn't fall off the plate or else i might have given up on life right there in my driveway.  and my hair was whipping all over the place and snow was blowing in our faces like sand on a beach and it was awesome.  by the time we got to their door, half of my hair was stuck to the lip gloss on my mouth and i didn't have a free hand to even fix it a little.  i put brady down and knocked (because this process took two hours and now we're well into nap time and i didn't want to wake up any kids that might be asleep... that house has a loud doorbell.

and then we waited.  and waited.  and knocked.  and waited.

and then we gave up and i cursed my neighbors and my life.  not really but i kinda felt like it at this point.  sometimes things just don't pan out.

so then i didn't get abigail down for nap until 3:30 and my kitchen looks like a disaster and instead of doing the millions of things i need to do, i'm having a self therapy session typing out this story.

post edit:  now it's two hours later.  somehow right as my angry self was about to hit publish, i got a call from my dear friend sister lisa.  weed is always so inspiring to talk to.  we have the best conversations.  they are always so uplifting and today was no exception.  my favorite thing that she said was "your dirty kitchen IS a reflection of your eternal choices!  it is that you chose to be a good mother and try your hardest!"  i needed that.  what an answer to my prayer.

still not graceful yet, but my kids are alive and unharmed.

did i ever mention the time when the christmas tree fell on baby girl?  it was within a few days of having brady and i was in bed nursing him or something when honey went to take a business call in his office.  and wouldn't you know but baby girl was playing hide and seek under the christmas tree in our bedroom and managed to tip it over!  luckily it fell mostly on the bed and baby girl could get out okay but seriously?!  of course honey steps away for a moment and a tree falls down on our kid.

so this evening i left honey at home alone with the kids while i went to a youth fireside from 6-8.  he texted me as i left and told me everything went well but when i got home he also told me that brady hadn't slept while i was gone (he seems to wake up from whatever his afternoon nap is and then stay awake and be grumpy and fussy for several hours until 9:30 or so) and i could tell it was wearing on him just a bit.  so i had a few things to do real quick but ten or fifteen minutes later i heard my honey call out to me "brady needs you!" which is our code for "i'm done with this kid and it's your turn now!" (we started using that with baby girl without realizing it but it works well so she doesn't know she's getting passed off for grating on our nerves) so i took over brady (and consequently baby girl too... because she seems to go wherever brady goes and because she's super clingy and attached to me since he was born) and brought him to our bedroom to nurse him in bed. and then to burp him, bounce him, and whatever else him to try to make him happy and comfortable.  meanwhile honey was in his office or something... who knows what but i told baby girl not to disturb him because he was taking a break.

so while i'm trying to help brady, super attentive big sister baby girl (i swear i love that she loves him so much but it does sometimes drive me juuuust a bit crazy) starts climbing on my bed side rails to reach over my nightstand to get brady a binky or nose drops or who knows what because she seems to think she always knows just what he needs to stop fussing (which is pretty much all the time) and i kept telling her to stop (this only happens fifty or a hundred times a day) climbing because it's dangerous and brady doesn't need anything right now and blah blah blah of course she's not listening.  and then i'm telling her she needs to be careful because she's going to knock the lamp over and then christopher walks in the door just in time to see baby girl knock the lamp over and hear the lightbulb inside crash and shatter into a million pieces all over brady's clean clothes and blankets (i dedicated that corner to him for the time being because his room is all the way upstairs and i'm too lazy to actually go up there for naps, diaper changes, etc.) and ummm, that didn't make honey happy.  he might have looked like he wanted to punch someone.  or throw something.  so, deciding that he needed another break (while he was cleaning up shards of glass) i took the kids upstairs to the play room (have i mentioned that baby girl thinks the playroom is actually called the ball pit?  "i want mommy and abigail to go play trains in the ball pit!"  ha) and we stayed there for a long time.  long past baby girl's bedtime.  because honestly, i know what it's like to need a break and i wanted honey to reap the benefits of it.

eventually my son fell asleep without waking up two minutes later.  and eventually (like at 10:00), my daughter got to bed.

this is what my nightstand looks like... nose drops, nail clippers, binky, and currently MIA nose sucker hang out on the window sill so they're within reach when i need them.  ps- thanks for the lamp, ashley!  luckily it made it through this unscathed.

and this is the current state of things.  sometime tomorrow i will skillfully text honey and ask him if that area is safe. anyone have tips for making sure your onesies and sleepers are free of tiny glass shards?

wanna know the great part?  somehow i kept my cool with baby girl.  she and brady did so well last night and all day today (in my opinion) that i'd stock piled enough patient parent points to help me handle my night of two gorgeous children crying (often at the same time!) and still feel compassion for them, myself, and my dear husband.  there's always blessings to be found.

is anyone else enjoying this mini series on "carrie is handling this two kid thing like she's stumbling through the dark in flippers and a straight jacket" or is that just me?

mother come back to me

my mother left less than 24 hours ago.  since then, i almost didn't make it home from the airport, i woke up in the middle of the night to a whole lotta pain and realized i have a clogged milk duct, i woke up to find out that the milk duct was not a nightmare but is a reality instead, i spent an hour and a half rocking a carseat and holding a pacifier in my son's mouth with my feet trying to get him to finally fall asleep, and i am swamped in the guilt of loving my daughter more because she never cried like this and is actually singing to herself in her crib right now... at 10:42am.

the silver lining?  honey was supposed to have a business trip to wyoming today that got postponed because of the bad weather.  so instead of him being gone today from 2am to 10pm, he's only going to be gone during his normal times and will get home hopefully before 7 tonight.  i think i'm going to be really loving that when 7pm rolls around.  i mean, i'm already looking forward to it.

airport run deja vu

you probably don't remember this horrific event in my life but unfortunately it's still seared in my mind.

today was my last day with my mother.  it was wonderful of course but then 2:45 rolled around and we were off to the airport.  mother gave brady part of a bottle and then used the google maps app on my phone (since we just returned my broken gps to costco yesterday) to guide us to the airport (i know i've been a million times but i still need help).  it worked great and was almost as awesome as my tomtom and mother and i raved about it the whole way there.  the kids were happy (baby girl) or sleeping (brady) and life was good.  i said goodbye to my mother (and part of me died inside... severe mourning) and set my home destination not thinking that there's like five different route options home.  well, i'll try to be short (i'm very unskilled at this) and just say that i realized it was trying to take me on the toll roads and i passed it up because i didn't feel like paying $10 just to get home.  then i drove to the middle of nowhere as i kept thinking it would just reroute me.

to be continued...

then things just started looking less and less familiar and more and more like rural kansas so after a few unsuccessful phone calls to get a hold of my honey, and then one where he said "i'm on a super important business call, are you okay? ....where are you?!  you're going west?!", i hung up and pulled off the highway and attempted to figure my life out.  baby girl (who had to skip her nap for this) started telling me she wanted to go home, brady started stirring and fussing, and i realized i was on colfax (which is not a friendly place for someone like me).  i called emmy to try to walk me through the google maps app but it wouldn't pull up when i was on the call so that didn't work and finally i got off the phone, gave brady the rest of his bottle (thank goodness for having a few ounces left!) and gave up on google maps.  i finally just opened safari and looked up the regular mapquest style directions on the web version of google maps and selected the no tolls option.  hallelujah.  and then i told baby girl we were going home!  (the whole time we were stopped she kept telling me we were at someone else's house and she wanted to go to abigail's house)  we were all thrilled!  except for brady who'd fallen back asleep thank goodness.  two minutes after i'd gotten back on the road, honey calls again.

honey: "where are you?"
me: "i'm headed towards 225."
honey: "are you on 70 west?"
me: "maybe.  that or colfax.  okay definitely colfax.  i'm at colfax and chambers."
honey: "k, you're only a few miles from 225."
me: "i know, i'm following mapquest directions on my phone."
honey: "yeah i'd say you've probably added 15 or so miles..."
me: "thanks honey, you're not helping."
honey: "and at least 25 minutes...  maybe more..."
me: "honey, you're still not helping."
honey: "yeah, you should have just stayed on 70 west because it would have just fed you into 225..."
me: "honey, stop."

and then i told him it was fine and done and our kids were content and contained in their carseats and i'm just happy to finally be on the right track home now.  so i dropped my mom off at 3:40, was finally on the right track home at 4:10, and pulled into the driveway at 5:00.  should i tell you we only live 40 minutes from the airport?

i've got a lot to learn

i want five kids.  possibly six, but at least five.  even after the past two weeks.  which is crazy because i am not doing this two kid thing gracefully in the least.

i've already mentioned that i'm constantly covered in a variety of bodily fluids and even when i do actually shower and get dressed, i wear the same three scoop neck shirts and tanks over and over again because when brady decides he needs to eat it was ten minutes ago dangit and what's taking you so long?!  so naturally i feel gorgeous.  not at all like a poorly dressed cow giving out milk on demand.  not. at. all.

my first kid never cried as a newborn and very very rarely as a baby and she has remained an unusually easy child.  my second kid is quite the opposite.  on the rare occasion that he's awake but not eating or crying, he's either grunting, fussing, or some other combination of noises that don't even have a name.

and as if the introduction of a crying newborn was not enough to get used to, it has also coincided with the injection of some radioactive substance into what used to be my angelic toddler, giving her obscene amounts of physical energy while making her insanely clumsy as well.  she has sustained more major head injuries in the last two weeks than i can even keep track of.  although that fall at costco yesterday bashing her head flat into the cement floor yielded a really great nap.  and yes, i know you're supposed to keep your kid awake after stuff like that to check for signs of a concussion but i just threw her in bed and relished in the, now infrequent, occasion that i would have three uninterrupted hours of not constantly contemplating tossing my daughter out of window.  i'd already spent much of the morning encouraging her to run away with a stranger so i took this as an improvement in my day.

so while my kids are frequently simultaneously crying and demanding my attention, my mother keeps laughing at my comments and questions asking if it's too late to go back on this motherhood thing and start a career instead.  i wonder at what point she'll start getting worried for her grandkids.  i know it hasn't happened already because i still get the sense she's in my camp more than theirs.  did i mention she'd been in town less than two hours before she suggested possibly changing her ticket to leave early.  well, should i go ahead and tell you that she arrived tuesday and by wednesday morning she'd changed her flight?  she says it because she wants to make it to salt lake for a wedding but we all know the real reason.  

they're not as angelic as they seem.

i'm sad

baby girl is so cute.  one of my favorite things she's been doing lately is getting more in tune with emotions and feelings.  when she hears a baby crying, she gets worried and tells me that the baby is sad.  when she's swinging on the swings at the park she tells me that "abigail's happy!" and when she cries she always tells me, "abigail's sad" which is so sweet and adorable it melts my heart every time.  so now whenever i'm feeling down, it's my first reaction to think "i'm sad" (sorry, i don't do third person) with almost the same simplicity and honesty as baby girl.

you see, pregnancy is a tricky thing.  so are kids, but that's for another post.

i feel like i've been doing pretty well this pregnancy managing my emotions.  concentrating more on monitoring my emotions and keeping myself in check.  well, saturday on the way home from our outing i went from happy to sad faster than most cars can go from 0 to 60.  when we got home, christopher took abigail in to put her down for a nap.  i stayed in the car and cried.  then i collected myself while i collected our crap load of food, sweaters, shoes, trash, etc from our outing and headed in the house.  i was supposed to meet up with friends at noodles to hang out before the relief society broadcast.  i was already late and would have had to just change clothes and run out the door.  but seriously?  that wasn't going to happen when my face was splotchy and i'm still on the verge of tears.  i headed up some leftover soup and climbed in bed.  i was hoping it would pass but it didn't.  at the last possible second i managed enough self discipline to get out bed, put on a jean skirt, and leave for the broadcast.  i showed up and sat with my friends but didn't talk to them.

the broadcast was great.  especially the talk from the second counselor.  but there were at least ten times my eyes were welling up with tears at the words i was hearing (pres eyring, might i remind you that there are many pregnant women in your audience and this one right here that was at six months pregnant to the day, didn't appreciate your story about your six month pregnant daughter having emergency surgery to deliver her child 15 weeks early.  the thought was nice though.) because i was touched but also because i was still so sad.  and after it was over?  still sad.  i felt so awkward as i tried to make conversation with people while i ate some amazing cheesecake.  cheesecake makes me happy but apparently not enough.  i went to bed sooo not looking forward to sunday but also so grateful for no meetings before church.

church was fine.  everything went well.  baby girl was well behaved during sacrament, i spent second hour discussing all the research one of my yw advisers has done for the trunk or treat (i could build a shrine to her right now that's how grateful i am that she's taken the ball on this one), and third hour i just sat back and listened as a member of the bishopric taught a lesson to the young men and young women since we were combined for 5th sunday.  the rest of sunday was also good.  german pancakes after church, naps, and honey's little brother, nate, came over to hang out for a while.  it would have been a fabulous day if i wasn't feeling so down.  it's just one of those things like when i woke up from my nap, i wasn't tired still, but i just didn't want to be awake.  and at 10 that night, i also wasn't tired, but i was just so eager to be asleep.

so i woke up this morning not excited about my day.  nothing planned but i knew we needed to get out.  we went to story time at the library and then hit up the dollar store and goodwill.  then baby girl watched thomas while i did some cleaning.  then we ate and baby went down for a nap and i did some more cleaning.  i write this down and think "what's so terrible?  this sounds exactly like one of your this-was-the-most-amazing-day-ever type of days!"

anyways, it's hard anytime you're struggling emotionally but i keep thinking back to the general relief society second counselor's talk and think "at least i wasn't that pioneer on the trail that lost her husband and only child within months of each other... or any of the other people placed in the horrific situations she described.  but somehow i'm still flawed and selfish enough to think, "BUT I"M STILL SAD!"

so as far as this pregnancy goes, physcially, i'm feeling my best.  emotionally, not so much.  how is it than i can go from being euphoric to super sad and no matter which one i'm feeling, the other feels a million miles away?!  tell me i'm not the only one that experiences this.

i am so exhausted

oh heavens.  i need my husband back.  and i need my body to not weigh so much.  i am far too early in this pregnancy to feel so so heavy.  like getting out of a chair and walking up the stairs?  i fee like i'm wearing a fifty pound weight vest.  not good.  also, last week i couldn't stop thinking about how i was sure i'd doubled in size.  well, at least my chest and my love handles and my belly.  well, thankfully no one has commented on my chest or love handles but i had two separate people at church straightforwardly give me a comment along the lines of "holy cow your stomach really popped out!  like i was just thinking how you barely looked pregnant and then now you look like this!"   i can't remember how they phrased it but it was basically "you doubled in size overnight!" except it wasn't offensive at all... just matter of fact.  and all i could say back was "I KNOW!  you're telling me!" because honestly it was nice to know that i'm not just the delusional pregnant person that thinks they're getting huge when in fact they are barely bigger.  my stomach really did experience a major growth spurt this past week.  and now i can also confirm this because i've outgrown half my closet in that space of time too.  jeans that i was fine buttoning a week ago are cutting into my sides and leaving red marks along what used to be my hips/waist.  i literally tried on at least 5 or 6 different church outfits last night of what i could wear today and although i could get stuff on, it was not a pretty sight.  not flattering or comfortable at all.  so i wore that old navy giant tent dress.  thank goodness i had that on hand.

here's the other way i know i'm getting big.  i've reached that point in pregnancy where people are constantly telling you how great you look.  like i look big and tired enough that people are like "man that girl needs help" so they compliment my appearance.  haven't you done this too?  you see a hugely pregnant woman and you can't resist telling them how amazing they look?  people did that to me all the time with abigail and i loved it.  soaked it up.  i didn't even care if they were genuine... i loved to hear nice things.  so when the first couple people told me how they liked my dress or how i looked cute today i was like "yeay!  they like my tent dress!" but then by the seventh or so person (yes, there really were that many) i was like "ummm, i think i probably just look so tired (i am) and flustered (i super was) and big (doubled in size) that i'm at that point in my pregnancy already where people are taking pity on me."  soooo tally them up:

one yw told me i tooked tired (i was on the verge of sweating from trucking around a toddler, heavy church bag, diaper bag, etc in heels and it was HOT.
two comments about how huge i'd gotten so fast.
at least five friends and several yw commenting on how much they loved by dress.  with one person specifically saying "i bet that isn't even maternity is it?"

yes, i'm big.  and yes, it actually is maternity.  in a size EXTRA LARGE.

things are not looking promising for the next four months.  but at least i have super nice friends, right?!

it's been a crazy busy day.