My Amazing Weekend

Here's why my weekend was so great:

Saturday:
My husband woke up and told me to go have a day to myself, so without a moment's hesitation I took a nice long shower, got myself ready for the day, fed the baby, and took off. I got a pedicure at a day spa, where the atmosphere was peaceful and I was pampered like the spoiled brat that I am. And then I did a little bit of shopping. I ended up trying on jeans, which I had no intention of doing for at least a few months - my new baby is only 4 weeks old, you know. But I was pleasantly surprised when the experience wasn't at all depressing, and I ended up with a cute, comfortable pair of jeans. It's amazing what a new pair of jeans can do for your mood. Putting them on this morning made me smile, and I felt like a more stylish, put-together version of myself when I dragged the kids to Walmart for our weekly grocery shopping.

I was gone for 4 hours, and my hubby would have been fine if I'd stayed gone longer, but that little break from the kids left me feeling incredibly rejuvenated. I came home smiling and laughing, with huge hugs for the kids and my sweetheart, who had managed to clean the house while I was gone! I am so blessed to have a husband who works hard, then comes home and helps out with the house and kids, and gives me time to myself as often as possible. Love you, sweetie!

Sunday:
This year we go to church from 9 to noon. While I love this schedule because of the full day left after church is over, I don't love trying to get the kids dressed and out the door that early. With the birth of our new baby, we actually haven't attempted the entire 3 hours until yesterday, so I was a little nervous. By some miracle, I arrived at church at 8:55 with 5 kids in tow. I didn't lose my temper once, even as I balanced feeding a newborn and trying to control a very naughty 4-year-old and an even naughtier 17-month-old. And then I sat at the piano in primary for 2 hours and the baby slept the entire time! I think John was shocked when we got home and I wasn't crying like I usually am after 3 hours of wrestling the kids at church. I chalk my success up to 3 things: having mostly boys, who require nothing more than a comb through their hair and some gel to look smashingly handsome; a husband who always asks if there's anything he can do to help as I'm running around like a mad woman on Sunday mornings; and a little help from above, because I'm trying to do what I believe is right by dragging my kids to church every week. :)

I hope that your weekend was as wonderful as mine!

Introducing....

Zachary Shane Bell
Born December 27th
7 lbs, 9 oz
20 1/2 inches long

There's a new man in my life, and I'm head-over-heels in love. Zachary came to us two days after Christmas, and he's the sweetest little addition to our family. Even Aidan, who isn't quite 17 months old, adores his little brother. I only hope that Zach can survive the "love" of his siblings, who aren't always as gentle with him as I think they should be.

It's been two and a half weeks, and I haven't even found the time to blog. Life is a little crazy with 5 kids. Right now I'm trying to be satisfied with just getting the kids where they need to go - to school in the morning, doctor and dentist appointments, music and dance lessons, etc - and keeping everyone clothed and fed. The house is staying reasonably clean, mostly because of my sweet, hard-working husband. But I should be straightening up right now and trying to tackle something on my gigantic to-do list. Instead, I'm taking a moment while Aidan and Zach are both sleeping to update my poor, neglected blog.

I have to admit, I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed still. Aidan is teething, and doesn't usually sleep through the night, so my nights are a juggling act. If one baby isn't awake, the other one is. John was such a huge help for the first week while he was home, but now I'm trying to take care of things so that he can work without falling asleep. There are days when I'm pretty sure I'm not going to survive, but luckily there are good days, too. I'm so sleep deprived, and still not feeling 100%. But I really love being a mom. Each of my kids is so special to me, and they bring me so much joy.

I have so much more I want to say, but the baby's ready to eat....again! At least I got some pictures on. Hopefully I'll have time to post again before he reaches adulthood.....

Confessions

1. I am completely preoccupied with the fact that I'm about to have a baby, and I'm convinced every day that it will be the day I go into labor. Every day I wake up disappointed and discouraged. So every day I vow to stop dwelling on whether or not I'll go into labor, and I come up with a distraction and convince myself that I can wait until the 29th. I am able to find peace for a good 20 minutes before I start thinking all over again that I'm going to go into labor any minute.
2. I have been driving around for 3 days now with suitcases packed and loaded in the back for the kids and me, just in case I need to call my mom or mother-in-law to grab the kids and head straight to the hospital. I am aware that this is only adding to the craziness I described in #1.
3. I remembered yesterday that really good chocolate has the power to calm anxiety. Unfortunately, that calm feeling only lasts a few minutes before more chocolate is necessary, so I've already consumed large amounts in the last 24 hours. I'm pretty sure that between now and when the baby comes, I'll double the weight I've gained so far in this pregnancy. And I don't care.
4. I've never been ready for Christmas this early. I've been done with my shopping for a while now. I only have a few gifts left to wrap, and even the stocking stuffers are in individual, labeled bags, ready to be dumped into the stockings. My Christmas cards are mailed, and the house oozes Christmas charm. I thought this level of preparation would bring me peace in my last days of pregnancy, but it's only adding to the feeling that I should be having a baby RIGHT NOW.
5. I have been putting off making a treat to deliver to my neighbors. It's the one thing that just doesn't sound fun to me. I keep falling back on the belief that people won't expect anything from me because I'm so close to giving birth. Lame, huh? I used that excuse for the Christmas cards as well, but eventually I gave in and took care of those. Maybe today I should start making cookies? We'll see...
6. I have a dozen sewing projects that I could be finishing up to keep me busy, but I continue to brush them aside, including at least 3 that are Christmas projects, which have now been officially pushed to next year....again. This morning after my disappointing OB appointment - I'm still dilated to a 2, after 2 weeks! - I drove to my favorite fabric store and bought darling fabric to make a new blankie for my little baby. I'm going to get started on it this afternoon.
7. I'm more excited to have my baby than I am about Christmas. I know this will change on Christmas Eve, with the kids being so excited. It's really all about them.
8. I love my Christmas decorations so much that I'm already dreading taking them down in January and going back to what seem like very dull decorations in contrast. Maybe I should make my house cuter when it's not Christmas, huh?
9. I went down to use the iron on Saturday and it wouldn't turn on. I was devastated! No actually, I was excited, because it was a hand-me-down from my mom, that I think she was secretly happy to part with when she gave it to me. Not to sound ungrateful, but I've been excited at the prospect of a new iron for a long time. When I went to buy one, I realized that they can be quite expensive, so I chose one somewhere in between cheap and expensive. It's nothing fancy, but I'm super excited to use it. Does that mean I'll be tackling the shirts waiting in the laundry room to be ironed? Don't count on it. Sorry, sweetie.
10. I've been trying to keep my house super clean in case I have to run off to the hospital at a moment's notice. But I'm really lacking in motivation, so I'm sitting in the midst of a big weekend mess. I'm going to use that baby blanket as motivation, so I'm off to clean before I start sewing....

Waiting

I'm going a little bit crazy. If all goes as planned, I'll be having a baby in 23 days. However, I've felt for a long time that this baby isn't going to wait around. Seriously, I've thought that for a few months now. And the closer it gets, the more I feel like he's going to come soon. The problem is that I really don't know anymore if this is mother's intuition or wishful thinking. Of course I don't want to be pregnant anymore, and of course I want to hold my little baby. I think it would be awesome to have him sleeping peacefully through our Christmas with us.

So today - getting ready for church this morning, all through church, making dinner tonight - I was pretty convinced that things were in motion and that maybe tonight would be the night. Now, that's a bad thing for two big reasons: 1) John is working all night tonight, and will still be on call every night next week, and 2) I'm only 36 weeks along right now. A little too soon, I know. Now that the kids are in bed, John is gone to work, and things are peaceful, I know that I won't be going into labor tonight and I can stop panicking/getting super excited.

Now if I can just keep from putting myself on this emotional roller coaster every day for the next 23 days. You'd think I'd know better by now, having gone through this whole baby thing several times before!

Random List

I'm suffering from a case of severe last-month-of-pregnancy ADD. (I can't say ADHD, because there's absolutely no hyperactivity going on. Believe me.) As of today, I have 27 days until this baby is guaranteed to be born - that is, my doctor scheduled an induction for December 29th. I'm not certain the baby will wait that long, but I know I won't be pregnant when the new year comes, and I'm thrilled! My mind is a jumble, and the migraine I've had since I woke up this morning isn't helping, but I'm dying to post, so here goes...

1. I've been sick for months now. Seriously. It was John's birthday, so October 17th, when we took the entire family to the doctor to be tested for swine flu. I had already been sick for a week at that point. I lost my voice the day before that, and it's still not really back. (If I haven't mentioned it, Aidan is the only one who officially tested positive for H1N1, but they treated us all, assuming that we had it. Really a relief to me, as I'm hoping that it gets us out of having it later on.) I'm finally feeling like the cough will be gone for good within the next week. Still, this has gotten me pretty discouraged and I'm having trouble snapping out of it.

2. I felt better when I read Amy's post and all of the comments and realized that I'm not the only one "in a funk." I'm taking her advice and focusing on the things that make me happy about Christmas. For weeks, I looked forward to decorating for Christmas and made myself wait until the day after Thanksgiving. Then that day came, and things just didn't happen. Since then, I have NOT been in the mood, and my house getting messier and messier has not helped. Today I forced myself to finish the Christmas lights outside, which make me smile every time I leave or come home (or walk outside to look at them, like I have 5 times since I finished). I can't get a good picture of the whole house because of a tree that blocks half of it, and giant, bright motion sensor lights that kind of ruin the effect, but take too long to turn off. (Last year I stood across the street in the freezing cold for far too long waiting for them to go off so I could take this picture.)

This year, I added a wreath with lights and a red ribbon to each window. I can't really explain why this makes me so happy.

And of course, there are the 3 little trees that Becky found for me a few years ago on clearance for a steal. They stand right outside of my front door and I love them!

3. My husband surprised me with a weekend getaway last month. I should devote a whole post to the trip, but we all know I'll never get around to it. I just have to tell you how awesome it was. He got us a super nice room in Wendover. (Thanks to his mom and her best friend, we got the room free!) If you don't know where Wendover is, it's a little town about 2 hours from here on the border of Nevada and Utah with absolutely nothing in it except casinos. There's a constant stream of cars from Salt Lake to Wendover and back, because for people who like to gamble, it beats the heck out of the 5-hour drive to Mesquite or the 6-hour drive to Vegas. John and I aren't really gamblers, though, so you might be wondering, as I was when he told me we were headed there, what would we be going to Wendover for? Well, the coolest part is that he scored us (again thanks to his mom and her friend) free tickets to see Bill Engvall. He's one of the Blue Collar Comedy guys. His comedy centers a lot on his marriage and having kids, so it really works for us. And now that I've had satellite radio in my van for a year (the free year is almost up - aaaahhhh!), I've gotten to hear enough of him to fall in love. (Blue Collar Comedy channel, Sirius 103, in case you're wondering.) Anyway, we left the kids with my parents, enjoyed the drive with just the two of us, ate enough crab legs at the seafood buffet to be truly embarrassed, except that we weren't (free, thanks again to ....... you guessed it!), went to an awesome comedy show, stayed up late watching movies, slept in, ate at the breakfast buffet (once again, free - I know!) and enjoyed the drive home with his mom. It was a wonderful surprise, and did so much to lift my spirits and make me excited to be a mom when we got back to the kids. I love my husband, and can't tell you how blessed I am to have him and how much he does for me!

4. I can't tell you about Wendover without mentioning that I came down with a horrible case of hives the day before we went. My doctor (my husband, that is) is pretty sure they were post-viral. I was getting over (or thought I was getting over) swine flu and it made sense, but seemed like cruel punishment. I lived through the ordeal with a steady stream of Benadryl into my body, and the distraction of a trip to Wendover, but I cannot explain how awful it was! My fingers were so swollen that I couldn't wear my ring, and my feet couldn't really fit into any shoes. Even my eyes were swollen. When I started falling asleep at night, I'd relax and forget not to scratch, and wake up scratching myself to near bleeding. When they finally went away a few days later, I said prayers of thanks several times a day and vowed to never, ever again take for granted not having huge welts all over my body and not itching like crazy!

5. I've been reading a new book by Wednesday Martin called Stepmonster. It contains a lot of statistics and personal accounts that have made me feel like less of a monster than I have felt in the last 8 1/2 years of being a stepmother. It's so nice to realize that other people - a LOT of other people - have had the same thoughts and feelings that I have, and that I'm not a witch and I'm not crazy. I can't tell you what feeling understood can do for your sanity and your peace of mind. Expect to hear more - a lot more - about this in a future post.

6. Part of the reason for my funk is that my husband is on nights again this month. This is actually the third week of four, and the last week of his entire residency that he'll have to work the all-night shift, but it's not making it a whole lot easier. The hardest part for me is that he has to sleep in the day, and I have very noisy children and a fairly small house. The week before last I planned things almost daily to keep us out of the house, but that's not that easy to do. Next week he's on call every night starting at 5, but that's much easier to deal with. And after that week, we're back to normal life. The end is in sight, so I should just suck it up and deal with it, huh?

6. Finally, this is all I can think about these days:

I bought these last week on a rare solo trip to Walmart for groceries. I have left them on the kitchen counter since I got home, and stare at them several times a day every day. I am so excited for my little baby to come! It's making it hard for me to focus on anything, and I have so many projects I want to finish and things that have to be done before Christmas, but I'm feeling really distracted. You'd think that I'd be taking advantage of these nights alone to get things done, but I'm so exhausted every night that I don't accomplish a thing. Looks like this night won't be any different. Now that I'm done with this post, I'm going to bed!

Frustrated, Part 2 (Or, the update I should have posted a long time ago!)

Thank you so much for all of your comments, advice, and support on my last post. I think more than anything I just needed to hear that it's OK to throw in the towel without feeling guilty. (I allow myself to feel guilty way too easily, even over things that aren't in any way my fault, so you can imagine what I was putting myself through with this!) Here's the conclusion I've come to for the time being, thanks in large part to your input: I'm going to keep the class going through December. This will give me time to decide if there's enough participation to continue. Also, the baby should be born right after Christmas, and I'll know if I feel up to keeping it going.

Since I decided on my course of action, I've been able to have a better attitude and just have fun with it. I've had 3 moms bring their kids the past few weeks, and it's been great. I feel like they're having a good time and their kids are enjoying it, and people are chatting and seem happy. Really, that's my main goal with the whole thing. I really appreciate any chance to get out of the house with my kids and entertain them, while in the company of other adults. I crave adult interaction during the day! And I'm feeling like I might keep it going even if no one else shows, because it's seeming more like it's worth the effort. Of course, once I've got kid number 5 to feed every few hours while I chase around a very active kid number 4, we'll see how I feel......

As for relief society, now that "enrichment" is no longer, I'm pretty much relieved of that part of it. It really was my own thing all along, and now I don't have to pretend that it has anything to do with the ward (except that I'm using their building). So that's no longer a concern. Yeah!

Anyway, thanks again for weighing in and supporting my right to do whatever I need to do. If I end up cancelling the class next year, I think I can do it without feeling bad. For now, if you're ever looking for something to do on Tuesday at 1:00, you know where I'll be! Brittany, I'd love to see you again and get a chance to meet your cute baby. And anyone is welcome, so bring all of your friends!

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And now, just for fun, here's what I made at church tonight:

(Sorry, the picture's pretty bad, but my camera's batteries were about to die.) If you know me, you know that this saying is very appropriate for me. I'm excited to put it in my new bedroom! (Yes, I realize I still need to post pics of my new cute room. The curtains should be done this week and then I'll post. See, I really don't have it together. Don't think I don't know it!)

Frustrated

When we lived in Spokane, a girl in our ward ran the cutest little music class she called Cherubs. It was once a week at the church. The kids enjoyed it, and it was a great way for me to get out of the house and talk to other moms. Well, when we moved here 2 1/2 years ago, I opened my big fat mouth and told the relief society presidency when they came to visit me that I had toyed with the idea of doing such a group. They had been looking for something for the young mothers in the ward, and immediately an enrichment group was born. I have to say that I was hesitant to tie it to the ward in any way--there was no budget for it and no one really knew what I would be doing at the group. But I went ahead with it. I asked for a very small voluntary donation, as the girl in Spokane had done, and sank a ton of my own money into it the first year.

I named my group MusicMakers, and I've done it for the past 2 school years. It has been a ton of work, and quite a bit of stress. And here's a confession: I'm not a "fun" mom. And my personality just isn't bubbly. It has been an effort for me to try to let myself go a little and just have fun with the kids for that hour every week. I'm glad for the opportunity, though, because I feel it really benefits my kids, and I've had a good time with them.

At the end of last school year, the group really fizzled out. People got busy, and I spent the last couple of meetings at the church with just my kids. I tried to make the most of those times, but decided that I probably wouldn't do it another year. It's a lot of work to get everything together and drag it to the church, racing to get there on time, just to sit there alone. Of course, when August rolled around, the relief society started asking about it. I told them my feelings, and agreed to pass around a list to find out who was interested. We have a very old ward, with few moms of small children, and even fewer who are at home with them. But the list seemed big enough, and I really didn't want to let anyone down. So against my better judgement and the urging of my husband to give it up (he hates to see me stressed out), I went ahead and started in September. (I have to mention my frustration with one individual who pushed super hard for me to do it, through the RS, of course, and has only bothered to come to 1/2 of one class so far this year.)

So I have spent the last two classes sitting at the church alone with my kids again. I don't blame anyone, because I understand that people have other things come up, their kids get sick, and I would never expect anyone to show up every single week. I certainly didn't in Spokane. There were times I didn't go just because I didn't feel like it. I totally get it. But my big fear is that people aren't coming because I just haven't made it fun enough. I spend hours looking for music and books at the library, and making and buying little props. And I honestly try to be happy and fun. But apparently it just hasn't been enough. And now I want to cancel the class. In January, I'll have a newborn, and it would be my second year in a row trying to run things with a baby strapped to my chest. And I have a kindergartner, so I have to race her home from school and speed-feed the kids lunch so that we can get there every week. I could honestly do without the stress. I just hate to let people down. And I don't want anyone to feel guilty, like I cancelled it because they weren't showing up.

I haven't decided what I'm going to do. What do you think? What would you do if it were you?