Life at the Moment

I am in the home stretch of pregnancy and I still feel sort of in denial about how soon this baby is coming and how everything is going to be turned upside down.  I put things on the calendar and then realize, oh my goodness, the baby will be here then.  At least I finally feel like I have the essentials for him.  Some of my church friends threw me a little baby shower for baby number 3.  My sister in law Rachel was able to come and so was my mom.  It had a sports theme and was really nice. 

 

Some of my work friends from my old school also had a little get together for baby number 3.  People who have been asking what I need/want have really followed through with my requests for bigger clothes and diapers.  I do feel a bit bad about the idea of a shower for my THIRD baby but it is also nice not to worry this baby will be naked and diaperless like I did a few weeks ago.

Although I am really not ready to wrap my head around a 3rd baby, I am definitely ready to not be pregnant anymore.  This pregnancy has for sure been the easiest of my three.  Overall, for being 37 weeks I am sleeping pretty well, I am not horribly uncomfortable, I have a decent energy level and I am able to stay on top of most of what needs to be done (the dishes are not piled up to the ceiling, everyone has clean clothes and most of our meals do not consist of cold cereal, so that is a win in my book).  I feel bad complaining when I know how much worse I could be by this point, but I am also really, really ready to not be pregnant anymore (or ever again).  Anyways....

While I was enjoying my sports themed baby shower, Hannah and Ryan went to Disney on Ice which Hannah apparently loved.  Her new thing is she was randomly shout out "I HAPPY MOMMY!".  Ryan said she shouted it out several times during the show.

She has shown some flashes of diva two year old behavior, but for the most part she is incredibly happy and loving.  Her latest thing is to declare "I yove dis!".  She will walk through a store declaring "I yove dis!  Mommy, you yove dis?" as she points to random objects.

It feels like she is going through a language explosion suddenly which is great.  She can almost always tell us anything she wants and she is finally at least attempting words that she would never say before like "Isaac" and "grandma".  Her articulation still has a lot of issues and they haven't dismissed her from speech just yet,  but I couldn't be prouder of her.



Her attention span has also grown longer suddenly and she will keep herself busy with a coloring book or with her babies for 25 minute stretches.  She also loves to "help" whenever I am cooking or cleaning in the kitchen.  We took her to the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia and were pleasantly surprised by how appropriate it was for her and how much fun she had. 

Isaac continues to be busy, busy, busy.  When you check our family google calendar, he definitely has the most events between school things, soccer, and baseball.  I feel bad because I don't update about him as much in the blog or on social media because it is mostly the same old same old.  He is a good kid though, and tries his best to help me.


Ryan's health is still up and down which continues to be hard on our family.  His doctors recently discovered that he is super anemic, so he has added iron transfusions to the list of regular medical procedures he must endure.  He recently heard back from Google that he is set to work from home for them part time.  Even though he is officially still on paid medical leave from Comcast, this will help bring in more income as I head into maternity leave.


Today is the last day of spring break and as usual I had a whole list of things I hoped to accomplish and tackle and I didn't get to very many of them.

March

Holy Cow!  I am logging into Blogger! 

Ryan is still home from work for the time being.  We don't know what will happen with him being cleared to return to work or what kind of position Comcast may offer him.  His old position really won't work for him anymore, as he has really needs to work in close proximity to a bathroom.  In the mean time, he has been applying for work from home jobs and going on secret shops with Hannah.  They have gone all sorts of places recently - restaurants, stores, even a local trampoline park.  It has been taking it's toll on both of us to have Ryan feel so exhausted all the time, keep opposite hours of me (I am up for the day and out the door by 7:15, he often doesn't even sleep fall asleep until 3:00...), and take a medication with a major side effect of moodiness.  With me getting huger and huger it is hard to avoid the rut of arguing about who is more tired/uncomfortable and who is doing more around the house and feeling resentful of the other for not seeing our own point of view.

 





We just really have to make a conscious effort to remind each other/ourselves that we are on the same side, we want the same things and things are hard now but they will get better.

I am in the home stretch of my pregnancy and everything is still up in the air for my maternity leave, which, you know, makes me feel nice and calm and in control of things. I was excited initially about having the baby at the end of the school year, but it turns out that the timing SUCKS.  Without sounding like I am in a mountain of self pity, it seems that the theme for this chapter of our lives is "If it can go wrong or be difficult, it will".  Since I don't have enough sick days this time around, and my leave falls so close to the end of the school year (pay year) it is a big mess.  If the baby were coming a few weeks earlier or later, things would be much easier, but he is coming at a time when there are still so many unanswered questions.  There are pretty much two scenarios and for my leave and I may not even know which one I am going with until the baby is here.

• Scenario 1: Return to Work After Only Six Weeks - This would ensure that I get paid for (almost) my whole leave, and I would get paid as usual for the remainder of the year/summer.  However, I had in my head that I would be home with the baby until September, so the thought of leaving him at six weeks to return for another 4-5 weeks of school is awful.  Plus with everything being a giant question mark with Ryan's job and health, the childcare situation could be a mess.  I am trying to remind myself that in the grand scheme of life, returning to work for 4 weeks before I am home with the baby all summer is not *really* that big of a deal... but it feels like it is... but I also need to get paid... and on it goes...
• Scenario 2: Stay Out the Rest of the Year/Summer - So if I am out any longer than six weeks the district takes out my health insurance and other costs for the rest of the year all at once and then pays me the rest of my salary in a lump sum in June. So figuring that, it doesn't make any sense to come back after 8 weeks or 10 weeks.  Obviously, I am super nervous to have a paycheck in June that is supposed to last me through until September.  I feel like we will be eating Ramen noodles for dinner for the whole month of August and using flashlights to keep electricity use down. Also, the doctor may or may not clear me to go back to work after six weeks.  Usually a c-section is 8 weeks.  But, I could always teach ESY.  Or get a summer job. 

So one thing that actually has not been too difficult so far (knocking on wood) is this pregnancy.  Granted, I am huge, moody, uncomfortable, etc. as would be expected when sharing your body with a six pound human.  When I go back and look at my blog updates at this point with Hannah I could barely move at the end of the day, I was seeing a chiropractor weekly, all foods and drinks gave me horrible heartburn, I was not sleeping, having painful leg cramps multiple times a night, etc, etc.  So far, I am still fairly comfortable and sleeping fairly well and have the energy to keep up with all my many obligations at home and work, so I am grateful for that.  It does seem like a tender mercy in this stressful time.  It's only a month until we meet our little guy and I oscillate between being totally panicked that we are totally unprepared and sort of feeling confident that at this point, we can just wing it.  We have a crib, and a carseat and some little itty bitty boy clothes and we will just figure the rest of as we go along. 



So Hannah and Isaac are hanging in there.  Hannah has been doing really well with speech. She is definitely speaking in phrases and sentences and is trying hard with words and sounds that are difficult for her.  She still tends to overuse the /h/ sound ("hup" for "cup", etc.).  She has suddenly taken an interest in colors and wants to tell us about them all the time.  ("Hannah have pink shoes"). She also remembers everything people do and will assign them to us.  I brought home a Dunkin Donuts hot chocolate weeks ago and whenever the Dunkin Donuts commercial comes on she announces "That's Mommy's!"  Other things that are mine apparently include the TV show The Little Couple and CVS.  She really is the sweetest little thing and makes us laugh a hundred times a day.  She will often just shout out "I yove you!" or "I happy!". 

Isaac is hanging in like a champ.  He seems to know when he needs to step up and sometimes I will just find him cleaning his room or unloading the dishwasher at the exact moment I am ready to just lose it from feeling overwhelmed.  He also is now in charge of carrying all laundry baskets up and down the three stories of our house since I can no longer carry the large baskets.  He seems excited about the baby coming and even asked if he could and the new baby could get bunkbeds together.  Baseball season has started (ugh.....so torturesome...........) and his team is the Phillies.  His coach is really serious (like he lays on the ground underneath the boys as they as pitching and records them with ipads) but also ridiculously enthusiastic and friendly which I think will be a good combination for Isaac.  Isaac is such a gifted athlete but baseball is a sport that hasn't always come easily to him and that he is not as confident in.  I hope this season will help build up his confidence. 

Anyways, it is 11 o'clock on a school night which is way, way past my bedtime, thank you daylight savings time.