I'm trying to get better at blogging. First off, because I've decided I like reading peoples blogs more than their status updates, because I get to know more about them. Also it might sound rude, but some days people on facebook just bug the crap out of me and I need a more intimate environment. 75% of my facebook friends don't really know me all that well anyway, and I don't feel the need to explain my feelings to them.
Also people who really care keep asking me how I'm doing through texts and emails and messages and so this blog is for them.
Where to start?
Still pregnant. Dialated to a little over a three and though I'm scheduled for an induction next week the Doc says she wouldn't be surprised at all if I went into labor this week either, so basically it's just a matter of time now. As close as I am, these hormones are making me crazy. One of my favorite people ever who also happens to be my ex mission companion, explained pregnancy hormones perfectly. When explaining how pregnancy works to her blog readers who have never dealt with it, she wrote:
"Your body gets bigger and bigger and your hormones get more out of control as your body grows, up until the point when your body can't take it anymore and you explode. The result of said explosion is a cute little baby. By the time you have the baby nobody likes you anymore because of all the hormones that caused the explosion to begin with....The last few weeks of pregnancy are miserable for everyone involved. Thankfully, most people forgive your craziness because they want to cuddle with the cute baby." -Ramsey Weaver
See? She explained it perfectly. At least for me. Hormones suck because as a woman you have to have them constantly, and they make it hard to think, reason, and feel clearly. Men constantly forget this. They get hormones too, but the huge majority of theirs usually take place during their teenage years and cause moodiness, acne, and desperate attempts to control their thoughts and urges. Either way...hormones affect you physcially, mentally and emotionally. The only difference is men get them for a little while except for a random testosterone outburst here and there, and women have to battle them their whole lives. Especially during pregnancy.
Hormone rant:
My brain has gone to mush. I forget where I put everything. (When I can't find my cell phone, I check the food pantry these days because it somehow winds up there.) Hormones do that. A few days ago I was reaching for something on the shelf and spilled a bunch of candy all over the floor. The thought of having to bend down and pick it all up with this ridiculous belly and the pain I've been feeling for the past couple of weeks in my right hip, made me almost cry. Hormones again. One second I'm laughing at how hysterical my husband is when he cracks a joke, and the next I want to throw my shoe at his head when he cracks one that I don't think is very funny at all. Hormones. I constantly worry about the stupidest things. Last night I got up in the middle of the night around 2am to check on my sleeping children, to make sure they were still breathing because I suddenly remembered an article I read in the news about how some poor child freakishly died in their sleep in the middle of the night. Hormones. The nesting instinct makes me nearly have a melt down when someone leaves a sock in the middle of the living room floor. Hormones.
To the average male, these things are hard to comprehend and we just look like lunatics. Heaven forbid they mention that though or we will skin them alive. Why? Because we are constantly fighting this hormone battle, ignoring the negative thoughts that we know are just the physics of our healthy bodies and not real, and while trying to hold back the tidal wave of the overwhelming monstrosity, men sometimes make the mistake of using words like "relax" or "calm down." Though they mean well, this can cause us to release the floodgates of the feelings we've been trying to withhold, and it often causes a nuclear explosion. It takes a good man to be patient with this process, a very good man...and that's why we marry them. Nevertheless, like Ramsey said, by the end of a pregnancy, we're not sure anyone will like us anymore, but because they're distracted by the cute baby, they forgive you, and THAT'S the real miracle of childbirth. So there's my little rant on why it's hard to be a woman. All of this occurred to me last night while I was up tossing and turning from random contractions and getting kicked in the bladder, so I thought I'd share.
Randomly enough, I actually feel pretty good today though. Weird.
I guess I should tell people that we have a name picked out for people who didn't know. We've settled on the name Jacob Christopher Itri. Deciding on this name was a long, long ordeal, which is why I haven't mentioned it earlier, but there you go. The only downside is the the name "Jacob," is extremely common, and has been in the top 5 most popular name list in the U.S. since 1995 or something like that, so it's a little used, but it also means most people won't make fun of it and it was the only thing both Scott and I could reach middle ground on. Scott really really wanted the name Christopher, which is a great name, except for the fact that our oldest is already named Crystal, and I thought they sounded too similar, especially if Crystal ever wanted to use "Chris" as a nickname in her adulthood. Also I didn't like the idea of saying "These are my kids, Crystal, Seth and Christopher"...the two names just sounded too similar. Anyway we battled about it for months, and Scott offered me every bribe he could think of, but it just didn't ring right with me in the end so we settled on the name Jacob, because we both like the nickname "Jake" or when he's a toddler "Jakey", (though I have a sneaking suspicion that Scott will always be encouraging of him going by his middle name if he chooses,). At first I was leaning more toward the name "Justin" but Scott accused me of liking the name merely because of love for Justin Timberlake. Not true, but he wouldn't believe me. Also because he knows someone with that name that he doesn't like very much, so he couldn't have it be his son's name. Fair enough. So yes, the name Jacob it is, but it's a good name that we both can live with, not to mention that the name has positive scriptural references both in the Book of Mormon and the Bible, which we like. We're excited to see what he looks like.
What else is on my mind these days? Hmmm...
Well Christmas. For one thing.
We decorated for Christmas in my house, which I love. Even better that this is the first year we actually have a real fireplace to hang stockings over this Christmas season.
Yes, Jake's stocking is already included over the fireplace. We're going to be a family of 5!!! How exciting!!I also FINALLY have a place where I can display my little porcelain Christmas winter village that I've been waiting to display until I lived in a place where I actually could display it.
Hurray for darling inherited family heirlooms!We also got the tree up on Thanksgiving night. We traded in our 7 footer for a 9 footer this year since we had more space for it, but it still looks small in the pic.
We also have the Christmas music blaring in the house. Scott and I spent hours coming up with a compilation of Christmas songs on an album stored on the computer so that we would not have to skip through cheesy ones anymore, since we had dozens of albums with only a few songs we liked on them. Scott being Scott found a way to blare it through the speakers in our upstairs loft so as to make sure you can hear the music in the background in every room of the house. How thoughtful! I think...
We luckily have all our Christmas shopping done so that we won't be scrambling too much by the time little Jacob gets here. Since walking hurts me more and more these days, we ordered most of them online through amazon, which was awesome because every day felt like Christmas when a new package would arrive at the door for a while. Call me silly, but it was exciting when the doorbell would ring, and I would wonder what came in that day, and then open the box and take a peek at said present when the kids were in bed and get all excited all over again imagining their faces when they got it.
Speaking of what the kids want for Christmas, this is the first year that Seth has realized that he can actually request a gift and actually get it. Unfortunately, due to ridiculous commercials on the television, in between his usual routine of watching 'Team Umizoomi' and 'Superwhy' in the mornings, he has been brainwashed into thinking that a children's game called "Pop the Pig" has to be the greatest thing on the history of planet earth. He is obsessed with getting this game.
There's not much to it. You put the mini hamburgers into the pig, and his belly gets bigger until his belt pops. If it pops on your turn, you loose. That's it.Scott cannot wrap his head around why this is so important to Seth, but at the mere idea that he might get this gift on Christmas from Santa, he started galloping around the room and whooping with joy at the top of his lungs, squealing with excitement. So there it is. Scott blames the commercials on TV for making it seem cooler than it is, but it's what he wants. Either way it's not the only gift he's getting, so even if the toy ends up a disappointment or only entertaining him for 5 minutes, we have back up.
Crystal is always easy, she just wants girly things like dolls, pretend makeup, and coloring utensils. I've always been really lucky to have Crystal as my first child, because she was always so dang easy. She is my angel child. She's obedient, cooperative, understanding, helpful, and just really really easy. When it came to potty training her, I just told her to start going in the toilet, and she did. Easy. I'm not implying anything negative about Seth though. I just didn't know what normal was until he came along, because I was so spoiled with Crystal, if that makes sense. Anyway, she's going to be a huge help for when Jacob is here. Both she and Seth love babies so hopefully the adjustment won't be traumatic for either of them. Crystal adjusted extremely easily to Seth. She loved him from the start and never showed any signs of envy or feeling neglected. Seth I hope will be okay...he still tries to crawl into my lap all the time, even though it's covered by my huge stomach and he doesn't fit on it anymore. Either way, Seth and Crystal rely on each other a lot, so they can always stick together if a new baby in the house becomes stressful. The two of them are extremely close so not only will it help to have a 6 year old girl to help me with the baby, but she will also be able to continue playing with Seth everyday, so that he hopefully won't ever feel lonely. At least I hope that will be the case. We'll find out soon enough.
Thanks for the encouraging emails, texts, FB messages and words to those of you who keep checking up on me, (you know who your are). I'm good. There was a brief freakout by me yesterday morning, when my son came down with the 24 hour flu AGAIN and threw up 4 times at the crack of dawn, but I'm over it. ( Apparently I don't react well to washing blankets, scrubbing vomit off floors, and getting vomit in my hair too early in the morning when I could go into labor any time. Who knew? ) The good news is that now that I've had my weekly meltdown it should be at least a week until the next one comes around, and it might not even happen because baby could be born by then, so that might have been the last time. I usually don't have nearly as many problems postpartum because I'm just happy to not be pregnant anymore, so hopefully it's the same with this one.
