Let's see. Last week, I started having contractions. Bad. I noticed the first ones when we were having dinner. Our friend Andy is on leave from the Marines and is pretty much living at our place. He and Wayne were joking about who Wayne was going to "wife" if I died in childbirth, and I was laughing so hard that I started contracting.
Two days later, I was still contracting. No labor pain, no "crampy" feeling, but definite, strong, regular contractions.
Come three days later, they were every twelve minutes. After much of the usual pre-labor frenzy, we discovered all I had to do was to lie down on my left side, pound as much water as I could, and sit them out. They have come once in a while since then, but just enough to make me stop talking and sit down, not enough to send me speeding off to the hospital again.
My belly is huge. Unlike my last pregnancy, in which I regressed to childhood and was forced to remain in bed and vegetate, bored, watching Friends DVDs, this one has been insanely active. I spent the first two trimesters entertaining foreign and local visitors, as you well know, walking ten miles plus a day and chasing a hyperactive toddler.
Now, in the last phase, I'm still chasing Annika around, but I'm also twice as uncomfortable as I was in my last pregnancy and twice as busy.
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(annika wearing my bra... hehe)
I'm in major nesting mode cleaning house and making things nice, I'm working AND I'm taking care of the baby. Because of my Monica-on-friends-type-OCD-about-all-things-clean, I literally cannot rest if something is not done. That means that if I'm in bed, and wayne comes in late and leaves his shoes in the living room, I will jump out of bed and get them to put them where they go instead of leaving it until morning. Wierd, I know. But it soothes me.
You'd think with that type of nothing-(not even a drop of water)-left-in-the-sink-after-meals, frequently-oiled-floors, window-sills-scrubbed-daily type of cleanliness, that my house would be spotless. But nope, because I have a toddler and a husband who I sometimes think is a toddler in disguise. Yesterday, I spent a half hour cleaning and scrubbing the bathroom sink, mirror, and cabinet. When I left the bathroom, he went in, shaved his beard, and walked out. I walked back in, finding a 1/2 inch layer of beard hair all over the freshly cleaned sink. Men, I'm telling you: you suck.
Of course, he cleaned it up, and of course, he apologized, but what's weird is that he REALLY didn't notice. How is that possible, when I can't even sit down on the couch at night until AFTER I've laid out the breakfast table for tomorrow morning AND placed the pan I'm going to cook the eggs in on the stove? Some say, I could, but I'm just not going to. It calms me to get into these habits. And sometimes, just sometimes, when Annika is sleeping and Wayne is out playing video games on guys' night.. I look around my house and I just breathe deep this huge, contented sigh. I love it.
And yes, I do still have a creepy junk drawer, just like Monica had her closet. People laugh, but it's true.... it's the place to put all the things you just can't organize.
Yikes. Imagine what it would be like if I had money!! I can't tell you how many rubber bins with labels and coordinating binders with colored index tabs indicating placement I would have lining my closet. I'm nuts.
All of this is made worse by the fact that I'm working now. I've taken on a role as personal assistant to my Mother in Law in the family business. She runs a nonprofit that parents my own, and part of her business is a large daycare. Wayne does the maintenance and rennovation as he prepares to hop full time into his personal training, I do the paperwork and administrative and technical stuff, and Annika plays with the kids and eats crayons. It's a win-win situation, because I'm present and active in her life and so is Wayne (we take regular moments to do activities with the kids) but I'm able to walk away and get work done when I need to, which I love.
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(Wayne and Tamara teaching the kids how to play nice)
It also enables Wayne and I to take lunch dates and things like that... something we had never done without Annika.
AND I love that we work together, because we get up in the morning, have breakfast together, get ready together, leave together, work together, take breaks together, and come home together. Who knew the Pearls would be SO right.... a family business is the key to a healthy and happy home. We fight less, laugh more, and really enjoy ourselves. It's a huge blessing. I know it wont last, so we're soaking up as much of it as we can. It has really been amazing!
The clean house, however, is not enough to keep the curious, God-forsaken roaches out. I'll spare you a repeat of my last blog from the Roach Warfare trenches, but lets just say I'm still in the throes of battle. I swear, it's like as soon as the heat starts to settle, hell just opens up under my house and spits them into my vents. Suddenly you're seeing dark shadows scurrying across the walls at your three a.m. bathroom break and no amount of anything is going to destroy these bastards. I swear, the other night I smashed one as hard as I could with my clog against the wall.... We're talking a roach the size of my fist (note: Wayne says they are "just" palmetto bugs. I say.. if it looks like a roach, and acts like a roach....) and it splattered everywhere. Unable to clean it up without turning on lights and waking up the family, I left it for morning. When I got up at 5... no trace of it. Just a splatter of it's innards all over the wall. I'm telling you, those things are out to get us--- and they are invincible. Worse than zombies.
I've been getting up at 5 am every morning to spend time with God. I used to have my "quiet" time after Annika was awake, and while breakfast was happening, but this way I feel more focused and able to hear from God. It's been amazing how much clearer He speaks when we stop to listen. It's rough getting up that early when I barely get six hours of sleep a night and it's only two months til I wont' be sleeping more than two or three, but you know... it's worth it. God is amazing, and I haven't slept a whole night since 2006, but I'm not dead yet.
On the knitting front, I'm teaching some beginner classes for Tribes. I'm also enjoying learning toe-ups... I LOVE them!!! (I'm using a pattern from this months' interweave)
As for yoga, I can barely get into a down dog these days. I am motivated for fitness but frustrated by my body's discomfort and inability to move the way I want to.
I bought some kettle bells because of my husband's obsession and those are WAY fun.
Tribes has a building now, which enables us to move forward with a TON of projects. It's been pretty amazing. We're rennovating as we speak:
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br>That's it!! Liza's coming to visit in a month and then my mom. The rest of you need to make it out here, especially when the baby gets here, I could use the help and I miss you!! (yeah, you!) Oh, and we got a HUGE TV to make up for the 13 inch we used all year. It fell straight from heaven.
So that's been really fun, watching movies on the big screen :)
OK, that's all for now. Much love!
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