Yep, it's Monday

As I've previously mentioned 400 times, Silas didn't sleep through the night until he was 9 months old.  It was hell, but now he sleeps like a champ.

Gavin was sleeping through the night at 6 weeks old (no, I swear).  It was amazing, and I felt like I had won the lottery...until he started cutting teeth.

Now, this is our life:

I'm pretty sure we did that a solid eight times last night (so, now I look like a slightly more dressed up version of that lady).

It's beginning to look like I'm going to follow up two years of pregnancy with two years of sleeplessness.  (If you just murmured something like, "you did it to yourself."  Then let me respond with, "you are so incredibly clever to have thought up that retort.  Now, SHUT UP.")

I hate the teething.  It's almost worse than colic because Gavin is cranky pretty much all day.  We have very few moments of his blissful, angelic smile peppered into the monotony of his perpetual screaming and falling pitifully out in the floor.

We had friends over for a playdate on Saturday.  Had it not been for the fact that I've known them basically since I landed in Texas, I would have actually felt bad for inviting them by the time it was all over.  Luckily, it is one of those friendships that can endure cranky teethers and slightly burned pizza.

So, here is to weekends spent enjoying your family, laughing with your friends, and cheering for your Cowboys.

Because some of you aren't on Instagram

Maybe you're bugging me about seeing pictures of the boys.  Maybe you should get on Instagram.  This is all the cuteness you're missing.

Sometimes the only solution is to give up

Hold your breath and cross your fingers.  I think (aside from our seasonal allergies) we may be getting a reprieve from snot and coughing and whining and medicine dispensing.

Just in time for the weekend and inviting friends over to play in our new playroom.  Yay for finally having enough square footage to put out a welcome mat and actually invite non-residents to wipe their feet on it.

Maybe I'll finish painting Vivian's room.  (Probably not because why do today what you can put off for four more months?)  Or maybe I'll catch up our laundry (ha. hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.)

In party planning news: I quit.  (Maybe I lied about the reprieve from whining).  

You see, the more children I have, the more I prefer to shop online and avoid hauling my minis into brick and mortar stores.  Cause sometimes (read: way more often than not) Gavin is cranky and doesn't feel like shopping and so announces it to the entire store and all of its patrons as loudly and as often as he can.  Silas on the other hand loves to shop.  He has absolutely no concept of the my paycheck to our bills ratio, and he has entered the phase where he asks if we can buy  all of the things.  And when I tell him we cannot buy all of the things, he joins in with Gavin's protest.

So, now a simple trip to the store looks like this (just pretend one of the kids is in my stomach kicking the crap out of my bladder):

That brings me to why I want to quit planning Gavin's party.  

Thinking up all of the ideas for the party was so much fun.  And if I ever decide to un-quit, it's going to be so stinkin cute.  And I've kinda already had the invitations printed and shipped, so I'm going to have to do something.

Buuuuuuuuuut all of the ideas require supplies I do not have readily available, which means they have to be purchased.

As we've established, I do not want to take my children shopping.  

However, I cannot find all of the things I need (want) for the party on one website.

Therefore, I will be forced to pay shipping charges multiple times.  I loathe spending money on things like shipping.

My choices are now: shop with the children or pay lots of shipping.

So, I quit. 

(J/K, I don't really quit.  But maybe someone spread the word that my entourage and I will be out shopping this weekend, and maybe they want to just catch a movie instead of making that trip to Party City.)

Leave it to your kids to keep you humble

I haven't really been feeling that crappy about  myself this pregnancy.  

Frankly, I've gotten a lot of compliments about keeping my weight under control.

I can still wear my work pants, I'm more than halfway done, and I've only gained  7 pounds.

To my complete amusement, I even got hit on by what I'm guessing was a 17 year old kid at the fair on Saturday.

So, as long as I put in a modest amount of effort for the day, I feel pretty good.

And then there was last night.  Standing in the kitchen.

Silas lifted my shirt to inspect my belly, pinched what can only be described as a layer of fat, and said matter-of-factly, "mommy, your belly is very fat" and then walked away.

Touche, young Silas.

(Insert grouchy mommy emoticon here)

We're sick.  Yes, again.  Because that's what we do now.  We run fevers and get sinus infections and croup and upper respiratory infections.  We politely pass them back and forth to each other.  We buy Kleenex and Tylenol and Benadryl and saline every time we go to Target...just in case.  We have the pediatrician's number on speed dial.  And I don't think anyone has been completely well in six months.

I'm blaming the school.  

The school that is sort of starting to wear on me.  Yes, already.

Do they ever stop sending home flyers needing crap from parents?

In October alone, we have 1) a fundraiser ("our goal is for every kid to sell 10 items"...they're four, people.  That means I'm selling ten items.); 2) a carnival ("please sign up to bring two bags of individually-wrapped candy per child"); 3) the pumpkin patch ("please send money for your child's pumpkin"...that you will then have to deal with either carving or painting) and 4) the class party ("please sign up to bring treats for your child's class").

That's just the school's crap.  That's not real Halloween and real pumpkin patch and real pumpkin decorating.  That's not Gavin's birthday which is two days after Halloween.  That's not the work potluck and the work pumpkin decorating contest. 

I'm about to be to Halloween as Ebeneezer Scrooge is to Christmas.  Bah humbug!

(I mentioned we're sick, right?  And that translates to an excused period of whiny and bitchy, correct?  Great.  Thanks.)

(Oh, and in a pause from the whiny and bitchy, Jimmy felt Vivian kick for the first time last night and that was just super awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.)

(Ok, back to hot tea and hating my ears, nose, and throat.)

They are completely deranged

I love my friends.  All of them for different reasons.

Surprisingly, I have several single, childless friends.  Our lives have about zilch in common, but they are fabulous women, and so it works.

Except when I try to gush about all the excitement that is planning Gavin's first birthday party (squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeal!!!)  Because they?  Don't get it.  At. All.

They say (delusional) things, like, "I'm not going to throw my kids parties until they're at least four and old enough to appreciate all the work." And, "My kids are only going to have one toy each and they'll have to get rid of that one before they get a new one because I don't want kid crap all over my house."

Who does?  None of us want a house full of legos and Barbies and toy trucks, buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut the trade off is that these things entertain and quite often teach our children motor skills, coordination, sharing, etc.

So, I roll my eyes at them and say (in that annoying "I used to be like you and now I know way more than you about this" voice), "Just wait."

I obviously know that Gavin a) will have no idea it's his birthday, b) is much happier with my pots and pans than anything I can buy him at the store and c) doesn't care a lick about a birthday party.  

They say the first birthday party is for the parents.  And it totally is.  A lot of ways selfishly (i.e. it's so much freaking fun to organize these things and hear "oh, wow, that was a great idea." blah, blah, blah).  

But why is it so much fun?  Because this party is in celebration of this life that you spend your days nurturing and loving and worrying over and praying for.  It's a calling together of family and friends to make note of just how much joy this little person has brought into your lives.  It's an outpouring of love in honor of all the milestones reached and the hugs given and the smiles created.  

That is why I know my friends who aren't parents yet are delusional.  Because it's true what they say about our inability to comprehend the love we will feel for our children until they are born.  Until they are a part of our lives.  We think we know how we will feel, and then we become parents, and that feeling is so much bigger than we ever could have imagined.  

Things that once seemed so important (like not having a house full of GI Joe's and crayon drawings) suddenly seem trivial.  The thought of not throwing a party for your one year old because they won't "appreciate it" is unfathomable.

For better or worse, bringing those little people into our lives changes us.  I don't know a single person who doesn't look at the entire world (not just their own small slice of it) differently since becoming a parent. I was watching a DVR'd recording of The Voice last night and heard a story about how a grown man had a motorcycle accident that nearly killed him.  I was instantly transported into his momma's kitchen when she got that phone call, and I ached for her (and I cried like a big 'ol baby cause that's how I do).

So, continue living in fantasy land my sweet friends with your still perfect bodies and your uninterrupted sleep and your notions that Disney-themed sneakers aren't in your future.  Enjoy your blissful ignorance while you can.

The rest of us have parties to plan and action figures to trip over in the middle of the night.

Sonograms and stairs

Somehow, we have already made it to the anatomy scan (a.k.a. does my baby have all the right parts in all the right places?)  This sonogram is the one I both dread and pray will hurry up and arrive every time I pee on a stick and get a plus sign.

It's the one where they check every little part and take measurements (and usually tell you whether you are team pink or blue, but I just got a team pink confirmation - woot woot!)  Basically, it's the one that let's you know you can rest a little easier (or in the case of my first child, the one that turns your world completely upside down).

I'm happy to report that little Vivikins is measuring just perfectly and has all the right parts in all the right places.  I have to have another sono.  Something about a placenta lying low but it doesn't really matter because I'm having a c-section anyway, but we have to keep an eye on it.  Anyway, bonus sono!

My doctor is going to deliver at or near 37 weeks despite my pressing to go to 39.  No, I'm not a sadist who wants to just keep being pregnant for two extra weeks when I don't have to.  It's just that Gavin didn't have to be whisked away to the nursery for 8 hours right after he was born like Silas did.  Gavin slept better than Silas as an infant.  And Gavin is, like, huge.  Silas has, like, literally not grown in a year.  I'm not sure whether the extra couple of weeks made that big a difference or if it was something else, but if it was a factor, I'll totally suffer through two more weeks of pregnancy for the end result.

Anyway, God has it under control, so I'm just going to do as I'm told and pray it all works out for a super healthy Vivian.  We're now looking at a late Jan, very early Feb birth.  That was still far enough away for me to be able to put off thinking too much about the serious reality of having three kids and what that does to the current two adults v. two kids ratio I have going (it screws it all up.  That's what it does.  Just screws it right up, and how do you ever go to Target again?)  

And then we moved (oh, yeah, we finally moved this weekend, yay!) into a two story house.  All of the bedrooms are on the second floor.  Jimmy leaves for work before I do.  Only one of the three kids is going to be able to negotiate the stairs by himself.  That is going to make for a lot of trips up and down stairs hauling kids and bags every morning in order to get us all out the door.  (Hello awesome quads?)

I've never lived in a two story anything.  Of course I've lived in apartments on upper floors, but once I got in the door, everything was one level.  This is quite different.  Laundry room?  Floor one.  Closets?  Floor two.  Sleeping children?  Floor two.  Parents prior to bedtime?  Floor one.

So. Many. Stairs.

I've already learned that living in a two story house makes use of that training I received as a waitress.  In other words: make every step count.  They told us back then to do everything we needed in the kitchen to serve as many of our tables' needs as possible when we re-entered the dining room rather than running in to get one thing, running back out, back in, back out, etc.

In the space of two days, I've learned to take inventory of everything I need either upstairs or downstairs in order to make each trip count.  "Oh, you have to go upstairs to get your shoes?  Ok, well, then please take this basket of laundry, this bag of body wash and shampoo I just bought, and the toys the kids hauled down.  Oh, and bring down the dirty towels when you return.  K? Thanks!"  

I've also learned that having a baby who still wakes in the night and wants a bottle takes serious focus (half asleep, clumsy anyway, stairs.  I think you get my point).  It was all I could do to focus on the steps required just to make a bottle in the middle of the night when I lived on one floor.  

Jimmy was on craigslist last night looking for mini-fridges to mitigate the risk of 3am trips to the E.R.

I'm telling myself that being a creative-type is absolutely going to work in my favor in creating solutions (short cuts conducive to continued laziness) to the two-floor equation.

In summary, pray for the children in reference to them having a clumsy mother (the kind who breaks her ankle walking on a flat surface in flats and prior to that sprains it stepping off of a bus) who will be carting them up and down stairs for the foreseeable future.