The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness

Fall leaves

Swings

Relaxing on the couch

Washable markers

Being 16 weeks pregnant, and finally, finally feeling human again.

In a due date community I regularly post to, someone asked if we all wanted to make predictions about the circumstances of our baby’s birth. Tom and I were on the same page during Alice’s pregnancy, but this time one of us will be wrong.

My predictions:
Gender: Male
Birthdate: 4/11/10 (EDD is 4/7)
Time of birth: 7pm
Length of Labor: 8 hours
Weight: 8lbs 2 oz
Length: 21inches

Tom’s predictions:
Two boys
March 27th
4:17pm
4hrs
7lbs 4oz
19inches

Ella’s predictions:
A boy and a girl!
April 3rd, in the afternoon, “after we have lunch”
(Me: “How long will mommy be in labor?” Ella: “61 minutes. Or hours.”)
(Me: “How big will baby be?” Ella: holds her arms like she is rocking a baby “This big”.)

Alice’s predictions:
Baby! Baby? Belly! Baby! Ninny. Belly.

Gather your small children and precious belongings, and head for the hills, because the belly of doom is on course to rampage Tokyo!

Alas, it has taken down it’s first victim!

-

15 weeks over here, and feeling upbeat about the fact that I am still functioning, despite throwing up multiple times every.single.day.of.my.life. Some day are better than others, but most are still well within the range of miserable. I’ll spare you the details, but know this: I weigh less right now, with that belly, than I have since I got pregnant with Alice. Shall I remind you of how ridiculously skinny I was then? (Look at those arms! Gah.)

Guys, that was me at 15 weeks with Alice. Oh god. Maybe it IS Godzilla I am giving birth to in a few short months.

Looking at those pictures, I am 97% sure it is a giant, scaly lizard who is having a dance party in my uterus*, not a tiny 4 inch baby. As such, I have an ultrasound scheduled for November 10th, to double check that there is only one monster in there, instead of 45. We are also playing with the idea of finding out the gender of said monster (will it be a Japanese Godzilla or an American one?)  but we have not decided yet. It has surprised a lot of people that we decided on an ultrasound this time, since we were 100% comfortable not having one with Alice, but joking about monsters aside, there is something that is nagging both Tom and I about not getting one this time, so we are following our intuition. I don’t feel like I am choosing one out of fear, or that I do not know the benefits of not having one, but for birth to be as simple as it can be, I need to leave all the baggage at the door, and I’m not sure I could if I do not trust my gut right now. And my gut is saying it’s time for STEAK. But then time to throw up a steak. And then it wants CHIPS.

*I started feeling baby at 14 weeks, which is early, but not so strange for a third pregnancy.

I’ve been avoiding writing a little house update, since all I can seem to do is complain about it. It’s ridiculous, because the reason I am complaining about it at all, is because we have the (surprise!) money to renovate it right now. The plan, before we had the means to renovate, was to be moved to the little house at the beginning of October, and just live there and renovate as we could. But, here it is October 8th, and I am realizing that we will be lucky to be over there before it snows. There is just still so much to be done, and as much as I want to be out of here, I know it would suck to live over there in a construction zone. This week they finished the electrical work (which had not been updated since 1950) and next week the new windows are being delivered. After that is plumbing (minor changes upstairs, but a new bathroom downstairs), outfitting and tiling the bathrooms, framing walls, knocking down other walls, drywalling, carpeting, painting, insulating the roof, tearing down the kitchen cabinets and replacing them, and about a million other small things.

Tom and his step-dad Mike are doing the vast majority of the work themselves, so between Tom working 50 hours a week at his job, and Mike running his own business, they are getting in 3 or 4 hours an afternoon, and as much of the weekend as they can squeeze in. Between their schedules,  waiting on permits/inspectors, and the fact that this house is full of surprises and quirks, it’s sinking in that this is going to take a while.

So essentially: I am whining that we received money in the mail to renovate our house, and that we are doing it. Boohoo, poor me, right? Don’t worry, I want to stomp on my own foot and say “Now you have something to cry about, sucker!” as well.

Having Tom gone constantly has taken a toll on me though,  since I am still struggling through “morning sickness” (which sounds so demure and tame, but is not).  I’ve felt stuck between a rock (puking 15 times a day, and needing Tom’s help) and a hard place (knowing that he was exhausted because he is working so hard for us) and have tried to keep my grumblings to a minimum. Once the girls started begging him not to go though, he caught on, and set us up a “living room” in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Now at least we can bring by dinner and share it with him.

So, little house update: It’s finally safe to turn on a light, but no one is home.

In the last few days, I have had the distinct feeling that the universe needs me to wake up and pay attention to the simple blessings of my life, namely that I have the luxury of complaining. I’ve been doing it a lot lately, and it’s easy to forget that there are so, so many more reasons to be thankful. If I let everything in my life carry the same weight and value, I would be buried under the blessings, but instead I shrug them off, and choose to embrace and give weight to the few, trivial complaints I have. But through friends, books, and chance encounters with strangers, the universe is shaking me by the shoulders, telling me to wake up. It’s a Monday in fall, my favorite season, and I am inspired to make today matter, if only because it is so full of opportunities for joy.

~~~

Ps: Happy birthday Luke,  and Elijah. Love you big.

In keeping with my long and illustrious history of biting off more that I can chew, I agreed to make Ella a “shiny, glittery, floaty, happy butterfly costume!” for Halloween this year. We looked through pages and pages of costumes on flickr, but in the end she decided that she wanted it to be a cape instead of stand-up wings, which seemed very convenient to me, since “how hard can that be?” She and I picked out all the fabrics, and here is where we should have done a bit of preplanning: we picked out all satins. Shiny, floaty, happy glittery satins, which are notorious for being difficult to work with, but are cute, so who cares, right?

I had to play around with three different stabilizers before I found one that was light enough but that would hold long enough for me to sew, and then dealt with thread tension, replacing needles constantly, and finally just accepting the puckers and moving on. Through it all, Ella was standing at my elbow, asking “Can I use the iron now? Can I sew that part? When can we add the beads? Mom, Mom, I wish that part was pink instead of blue. Mom, can you give this one to Alice and make mine pink?”

When I asked her to try it on today, she agreed, but insisted that we start adding the sequins soon, because otherwise “no one will give me candy”. Which is about when I threatened to “take away Halloween this year if you don’t say thank you!”

At least it is shiny, happy, glittery and floaty. Now I get to make another one, in pink.