shedding the last of my dignity.

If you spend any amount of time with the girl and me over the next month or so, be prepared to spend time with our constant companion: the potty seat. Maybe you could manage to balance a fidgety toddler on a public toilet and an 8 month pregnant belly without falling or letting the toddler touch ANYTHING, but I cannot.
So, until our boy makes his escape, I will be traveling with potty seat in hand. It's a glamorous life.

27

Dear Claire,
This could easily be the last letter I will write to you as an only child. I have a feeling that in a month, things are going to get crazy even if your brother isn't here yet.

Things might be hard for us, girlie. You're going to have to learn to share. And so am I. We'll make room for our boy together. He can dance at our dance parties and bake banana bread with us. He is going to be needy but we can do this. We will welcome him into our little club because he is one of us.

Do you know that he moves the most when you are around? Yours is his most favorite voice. It is also mine.

I worry about how it will be for him, being second. You've had 2 years to weasel your little self into my heart and amaze me with how wonderful you are. I worry, but it is for nothing. I will love him because he is ours. Because he is mine, like you are. And that will always be enough.
Love,
Mama

Look at you at 27 months, I'm still amazed.

also topping the list.

When I posted this, I forgot to mention the all time classic, "When you can't sleep at night, your body is just preparing to be up with the baby."

Thank you for that one, it gives me such comfort at 12:14 AM.


Bret Michaels agrees. Not comforting at all.

wishing and hoping.

Today she started saying, "No mama tired." Unfortunately, I just am. Today was hard. I lug around this super-sized version of myself and she wants to play. I'm not nearly as fun as I used to be and we both feel it. I find myself saying no more than I normally would.
I think we are all wishing that our boy would come early. No one more than me.

today.

I went grocery shopping alone this morning, because we needed food. Because we couldn't eat Subway or Taco del Mar one more time. Because a can of black beans does not a meal make. I went to that big box store that I hate. The one that I broke up with early in my pregnancy because I couldn't handle the pushy customers and the smell. Bagging groceries myself hasn't been a feature that I've sought out in a grocery store ever, but especially in recent weeks. When a woman with A CANE almost plowed me over today, I realized that things are about to change.

I feel like I have this down. And now everything is going to change. Again.
My heart broke a little this weekend, when she ran to Hollie for kisses on her hurt knee. And ran to Nate saying, "Uppie Dada!" when she wanted to be picked up. She knows that things are changing, she sees that I can't hold her in the way that I could before. And while the head knows that it's good for her to learn to depend on others besides me, it takes the heart longer to catch up.

full.

I have pictures and a post in my mind about a beach trip that made me feel grateful for being exactly where I am.

I have exactly 2 photos from our recent camping trip and a post in my mind about the way my husband made it all happen and how he was perfect in every way for 47 of the 48 hours we were gone.

I have video of my girl singing twinkle, twinkle little dar, that is probably interesting to only myself and The Oma, but whatever.

Also I have a story about my sucktastic doctor that you're not going to believe.

But Internet, I am tired. There's no food in the house. There is little room in my body for this growing baby.
And here I am, full of this boy, smiling like a deranged person, trying to avoid looking like this once again.

Millions of tiny white polka dots, so slimming on the 8-month pregnant frame.

paternity test not necessary.

note to self

You are not allowed to watch A Baby Story on TLC. You are not capable of watching that show right now. Walk away, friend, walk away.

mumu anyone?

For a few weeks now, Claire and I have been taking Parent/Tot swim lessons at the Y. I love watching Claire get excited to go in "the big poo." She sings the little songs and splashes at all the right times. She even remembers how to get out of the pool in the recommended way (elbow, elbow, tummy, knee, knee). It's darn cute.

Not so cute? My 8 months pregnant body, crammed into the maternity swimsuit from a my last pregnancy. Why is it that the makers of maternity swimsuits insist low cut styles that only accentuate the growing ladies? Trying to maintain modesty, while wrestling 28 pounds of Claire is not easy. Internet, I need some help. Anybody know where I can get a decent maternity swim suit? Preferably one that covers more than this.

on birds, moles and growing up.

Am I the only one who feels like she's waiting for the grown ups to come? A few weeks ago, I opened the curtains on a Sunday morning to discover fresh bird droppings in the middle of our living room window. Claire immediately wanted to know what that was, so I told her, "it's poo." Every day she would point it out to me, as if to say, come on, mom, clean that crap up. Around the same time, we discovered another giant poo, this time on our back door. For some reason, it didn't occur to me that I should be the one to clean it. It also didn't occur to Nate. Suddenly we were those people. You know, those people with the poo on their house. A week went by before I filled a bucket with sudsy water and scraped the poo off of the front and back of my house, it took about 3 minutes.

Around the same time, Nate decides to make it his mission in life to kill the moles that have been destroying our backyard. He got two of them in under a week and we've had no fresh mole holes for the first time in months. We are both thrilled. I guess we're growing up. We've stopped waiting for the grownups to kill the vermin or take care of the poo.
My husband: making backyards safe, one mole at a time.

awesome things people say to pregnant ladies.

1. Are you sure you're not having twins?
2. You're due in August? You have to go through the whole summer. It's going to be SO hot!
3. You're having a boy? Boys are much harder than girls.
4. Your first will probably hate you for having a baby, but only for 6 or 8 months.

Dude, I wish I were making this up. Comments are back on, friends. Tell me, what was the most awesome thing someone ever said to you while you were 'with child?'