Yes. It's true. We are pregnant again.
Well, I'm pregnant again. But my husband's going to have a fourth kid too. So we're both "expecting" a baby. I mean, at this point, I've seen an ultrasound. So I'm pretty confident it's a baby. I have joked that we're hoping for a unicorn. That would be pretty neat. But again, two ultrasounds in I think it's pretty much a baby. It's due the first of November, but already measuring ahead. So who knows.
Most people are surprised. So far, no one has been rude about it. But I'm barely showing, still in that "she needs to lay off the cupcakes" phase. I can still wear my jeans, I just can't button them. My shirts fit, but I'm awfully busty and look like I need to go up a size. Once I'm out and about with three kids and am obviously pregnant is when I expect the ugly looks and snide comments. It's interesting how much differently people treat you when you have one or two kids with you versus three. I'm sure four will be all that much worse. Why are so many anti-big families these days? Argument for another day.
People have a lot of questions when they find out. Are you excited? Are you nervous? Are you hoping for a boy this time? I think a lot of people really want to ask why, but are a little afraid to.
Well, to answer those questions. Yes, we are excited about having another kid. Who wouldn't be? Kids are wonderful blessings and so much fun. They're amazing little miracles. How could we not be excited? However, I hate being pregnant. Who wouldn't? I hate getting fat and not being able to do any of the things I'm used to doing. I miss spicy foods and beer and wine and sushi. I miss jogging and riding a bike. I miss seeing my toes! And I really miss beer. Ha! So, while I'm not necessarily stoked about the whole not being in charge of my body for nine months (plus the restrictions post-partum while breast feeding), I'm super stoked about another baby.
Are we nervous? Well, that one's complicated. I think with every pregnancy, you worry that you have been too fortunate in the previous ones and THIS one will have problems. And of course, you can't open Facebook without seeing horror stories about moms or babies or siblings. And I'm a born worrier. Am I nervous about having a fourth child? No. Do I worry about the things all parents worry about, like health, safety, labor and delivery etc.? Yes, of course. I wouldn't be me if I didn't.
As far as gender, I'm not being one of those people who just say this, but I just really, really want a healthy, happy baby. I am not someone who feels like I need to have a baby of each gender to be happy. I will be perfectly content with four girls. I absolutely love having three girls and I know a fourth will be that much more fun. However, it would be kinda neat to get to shop for a boy for once. It will be a learning experience for sure to have a boy. And I will really feel sorry for him growing up with three older sisters. It'll be a rough time with lots of dress up, lots of tea parties and lots of Barbies. Still, we did not get pregnant in hopes of having a boy. When Josh and I were discussing having another kid, I very specifically told him that we had a nearly 90% chance of having a girl. And he agreed that it was perfectly alright with him. Not every man feels like he needs a male progeny to be happy. Really, we just want a healthy baby.
We are very happy and appreciative of the warm wishes from family and friends. I'm excited about having another winter baby, although a lot of pregnancy will be in the summer. Still the worst of my pregnancy it will be cooler. So maybe it won't be too bad. Baby's birthday is expected to be around the time of two grandmother's birthdays. One the end of October and one the beginning of November. So they'll both have their fingers crossed for a shared birthday. That'll be fun. Hopefully. And then there is the awesome realization that due to the baby's birth and my maternity leave I will get to spend the holidays with my family for the first time since I had my own family. We can do Thanksgiving on Thursday and Christmas on Friday. It'll be awesome!
And this year there will be another little person to celebrate with. I'm sure he or she will be too little to care of course. But it will be a prequel of the wonderful, fun-filled years to come. A house full of noise and laughter and little feet. Siblings playing and fighting and loving as they go through their every day life. I can't wait to see all the wonderful adventures that they will have together. The adventures we will all have together.
So, the final and potentially most complicated question. Why?
First, I absolutely love children. I have so much fun going on little adventures with my little people, talking with them about their lives, teaching them about the world and just watching them interact. They are an immeasurable blessing. And they have without a doubt changed my life (and me) for the better. They have taught me life lessons that I would have thought I was too old to learn. And I have become a much better, stronger, wiser person than I would have imagined was possible six years ago.
Second, I want my children to have a lot of branches in their tree to fall back on.
Saturday, May 9, 2015
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
The Curse of Blogs
I read a blog the other on the curse of being perpetually "busy." I suppose that describes me. I am always busy.
With three kids and a full-time job there just isn't time to not be busy. There is always someone needing something, laundry that needs doing, something that needs cleaning, food that needs fixing, bills that need paying. Really, the list never ends. And I have even slacked up quite a bit on my house work. Laundry goes unfolded. Floors go unmopped. Rooms remain slightly chaotic. Eh. It's not hurting anyone.
But apparently, now I also have to find time to be NOT busy.
Sometimes, I read a blog and I think, what an inspiration! This is what I needed today. I'm so glad I invested two minutes while I ate my cereal or watched tv or used the bathroom (yeah, I know. Kinda ew. But, it's one of the few times I get peace and quiet.) to read this. And sometimes I read something and I have this moment of "Oh my God, I'm doing everything wrong." And then in the next moment I would like to smack the writer.
Yes, there is such thing as being too busy. I have days where I look back and wish I had invested my time differently. Maybe that load of laundry could have waited until after the girls went to bed. Or maybe I should have just left the bathroom mess for tomorrow. Because when I got done folding clothes or scrubbing some kind of purple-green slime off the bathroom counters (Really, how do kids make these messes?), the kids were coloring the couch with their crayons and instead of getting to sit down and color with them, I had to send them to time out and then monitor them cleaning the couch. Or some other disaster had arisen that required my attention and I didn't get to sit and read the book I had planned on.
But there are days where I spend the whole day lounging around with my kids. Reading books and coloring and playing. And yet I still manage to cook three reasonably healthy meals and get everything that HAS to be done done.
In today's society, we have access to so much information. Blogs, articles, lists. Pinterest posts, phone apps are all out there. Thousands of people wanting to tell how you need to live your life and how you're doing it all wrong because it isn't their way. There are hundreds of people ready to tell why crying it out is the best way to sleep train and then another hundred who want to tell you that crying it out is going to ruin your kid FOR LIFE and that co-sleeping is the only correct way to let your baby sleep. Hundreds of people advocating green living and cloth diapers and organic everything. And if you aren't doing it their way, by golly, you are wrong, wrong, wrong. People to tell you that your kids need to be close in age so they have playmates and people to tell you to space them out because each child deserves their own childhood. If you want to feel bad about your life, just get on the internet. I'm sure within 10 minutes you can find a blog that will make you feel like utter crap.
Parenting is tough and it takes a village. But these days, too much of that village comes from the digital world. When our parents were having kids, they had Dr. Spock and a handful of parenting books. Then they went to their parents and their grandparents for advice. While instant access to an entire universe of new ideas can be an incredible asset, it's also a terrible curse for parents today.
I really appreciate the bloggers who simply want to tell me what they do and why. I love information. I love learning new things. When pregnant with Buffy, I did a lot of reading and research and decided that I wanted to sort of co-sleep. I wanted to do baby wearing. I wanted to breastfeed. By the time she was a year old, I wanted to cloth diaper and made a lot of moves to go green in our home. By her second birthday, we also had gone mostly organic, have cut out red meat, minimize our Walmart shopping, etc. Mostly because of online reading and research, including blogs where I read about others' experiences and opinions. That's not to say that these things are the "right" things or the "best" things, but they are what we decided were best for OUR family and OUR situation.
When I could not get my cloth diapers to stop smelling funky, I got on Pinterest and changed how I was washing them. Now, we are problem free. When Evie was younger and the doctors said that she was just really smart (which she is) and I felt like there was something else, I got online and found SPD and realized this was what was wrong. When I got a bread machine for Christmas and had no idea how to use it, I got online and found a ton of information on using it as well as recipes. Now it is my favorite kitchen appliance. For everything from supper ideas to crafts for the kids, I can find it online. It is a great resource!
Sometimes though, I will be skimming Facebook and see a blog link and click it because the title pulls me in. Then a few minutes later, I wish I never had. I've gotten much better and not letting someone else's opinion have a big impact on my life. But I know not everyone has that ability. And I worry about what kind of impact this Negative Nancy mentality is having on those new moms who turn to the internet for some hope and light in what may be a dark and difficult time and instead hear how they are doing everything wrong.
Blogs can be both a blessing and a curse. I hope that my writing isn't the pushing it down your throat, you have to do it my way or you're wrong type that I find so disagreeable. I intend my blog only as a documentation of our choices and a chronicle of our crazy lives. Three babies in four years isn't for everyone, I am the first to say it. But it has been a wonderful choice for us.
With three kids and a full-time job there just isn't time to not be busy. There is always someone needing something, laundry that needs doing, something that needs cleaning, food that needs fixing, bills that need paying. Really, the list never ends. And I have even slacked up quite a bit on my house work. Laundry goes unfolded. Floors go unmopped. Rooms remain slightly chaotic. Eh. It's not hurting anyone.
But apparently, now I also have to find time to be NOT busy.
Sometimes, I read a blog and I think, what an inspiration! This is what I needed today. I'm so glad I invested two minutes while I ate my cereal or watched tv or used the bathroom (yeah, I know. Kinda ew. But, it's one of the few times I get peace and quiet.) to read this. And sometimes I read something and I have this moment of "Oh my God, I'm doing everything wrong." And then in the next moment I would like to smack the writer.
Yes, there is such thing as being too busy. I have days where I look back and wish I had invested my time differently. Maybe that load of laundry could have waited until after the girls went to bed. Or maybe I should have just left the bathroom mess for tomorrow. Because when I got done folding clothes or scrubbing some kind of purple-green slime off the bathroom counters (Really, how do kids make these messes?), the kids were coloring the couch with their crayons and instead of getting to sit down and color with them, I had to send them to time out and then monitor them cleaning the couch. Or some other disaster had arisen that required my attention and I didn't get to sit and read the book I had planned on.
But there are days where I spend the whole day lounging around with my kids. Reading books and coloring and playing. And yet I still manage to cook three reasonably healthy meals and get everything that HAS to be done done.
In today's society, we have access to so much information. Blogs, articles, lists. Pinterest posts, phone apps are all out there. Thousands of people wanting to tell how you need to live your life and how you're doing it all wrong because it isn't their way. There are hundreds of people ready to tell why crying it out is the best way to sleep train and then another hundred who want to tell you that crying it out is going to ruin your kid FOR LIFE and that co-sleeping is the only correct way to let your baby sleep. Hundreds of people advocating green living and cloth diapers and organic everything. And if you aren't doing it their way, by golly, you are wrong, wrong, wrong. People to tell you that your kids need to be close in age so they have playmates and people to tell you to space them out because each child deserves their own childhood. If you want to feel bad about your life, just get on the internet. I'm sure within 10 minutes you can find a blog that will make you feel like utter crap.
Parenting is tough and it takes a village. But these days, too much of that village comes from the digital world. When our parents were having kids, they had Dr. Spock and a handful of parenting books. Then they went to their parents and their grandparents for advice. While instant access to an entire universe of new ideas can be an incredible asset, it's also a terrible curse for parents today.
I really appreciate the bloggers who simply want to tell me what they do and why. I love information. I love learning new things. When pregnant with Buffy, I did a lot of reading and research and decided that I wanted to sort of co-sleep. I wanted to do baby wearing. I wanted to breastfeed. By the time she was a year old, I wanted to cloth diaper and made a lot of moves to go green in our home. By her second birthday, we also had gone mostly organic, have cut out red meat, minimize our Walmart shopping, etc. Mostly because of online reading and research, including blogs where I read about others' experiences and opinions. That's not to say that these things are the "right" things or the "best" things, but they are what we decided were best for OUR family and OUR situation.
When I could not get my cloth diapers to stop smelling funky, I got on Pinterest and changed how I was washing them. Now, we are problem free. When Evie was younger and the doctors said that she was just really smart (which she is) and I felt like there was something else, I got online and found SPD and realized this was what was wrong. When I got a bread machine for Christmas and had no idea how to use it, I got online and found a ton of information on using it as well as recipes. Now it is my favorite kitchen appliance. For everything from supper ideas to crafts for the kids, I can find it online. It is a great resource!
Sometimes though, I will be skimming Facebook and see a blog link and click it because the title pulls me in. Then a few minutes later, I wish I never had. I've gotten much better and not letting someone else's opinion have a big impact on my life. But I know not everyone has that ability. And I worry about what kind of impact this Negative Nancy mentality is having on those new moms who turn to the internet for some hope and light in what may be a dark and difficult time and instead hear how they are doing everything wrong.
Blogs can be both a blessing and a curse. I hope that my writing isn't the pushing it down your throat, you have to do it my way or you're wrong type that I find so disagreeable. I intend my blog only as a documentation of our choices and a chronicle of our crazy lives. Three babies in four years isn't for everyone, I am the first to say it. But it has been a wonderful choice for us.
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