Updates

First of all, in my last post, I mentioned my grandma had a stroke. Well, as it turns out, she did NOT have a stroke. But it totally looked like she did. No, what happened was she took a fistful of pills in a suicide attempt...to be honest, we're all kind of mad at her, to varying degrees. Our family has ENOUGH stress going on right now, what with my uncle's (her SON'S) cancer treatments and surgeries. She's clearly not in her right mind to pull a stunt like that - especially at a time like this. It's like she has to make HIS illness all about HER. She is currently in the psych ward for a 5-day evaluation, which will likely be followed by some time in a rest home where she can be monitored further. Personally, I think she (and Grandpa) should permanently be placed in a rest home...especially with all their hospital stays. But that's just my opinion.

I'm mostly mad at her for my mom's sake. Mom's been bending over backwards to help my grandparents and uncle for YEARS. LONG before we found out her brother has cancer (we found out in August). It's a 45-60 min drive to their house and she drives up there ALL the time. She cleans for them, she buys groceries for them, she does their laundry, etc. And she runs up there all the time in a panic whenever any sort of emergency occurs - often to find out there isn't any recourse for the wolf-cry. I can't tell you HOW many times Grandma has called Mom and said, "Grandpa is dying, Grandpa is dying!" and Mom has dropped everything, jumped in the car, drove all the way up there bawling her eyes out...only to find out he's FINE. Or at least, as fine as a 91 year old man can be. And for the last several weeks, my uncle has stayed at my parents' house post-surgery since he'd obviously get better care there than at home with his 91 and 85 year old parents. He wanted to go home on Friday, and despite Mom's protests that all they'd do is fight when he got there, he went home. And of course, she was right. Friday night is when Grandma had her little OD suicide attempt. Lovely, huh?

Aaaaanyway. I could rant for hours on this subject and it really wouldn't do anyone any good. So on to more positive things!

First of all, I am now at 37 weeks!! Woohoo!! Only 3 weeks till my due date! And, as I've said about a million times, hopefully he'll decide to come before then. Preferably in 2009 so we can get the child tax credit sooner. I honestly have no idea how we'll be able to pay John's dental bills without it. So really, we NEED him to come this year. Just not until Friday at the earliest, since this week is finals week for John! And not on Christmas or Christmas Eve. But any other time would be awesome!

I'm definitely ready to be done being pregnant. At least on several levels. I'm not sure how ready I am to have 2 kids to care for, but I think it'll be easier to take care of them when this little guy is OUT of me rather than still in! My patience has worn thin lately. The fact that I haven't been able to sleep at night is definitely not helping. That, plus pregnancy discomforts and hormones, a teething 2 year old, and the stress of John finishing up the semester.

We've all been sleep deprived around here lately. Emma, too. Bedtime and naptime have been so screwed up lately. She totally fights both. She's also taken to screaming when she doesn't get her way...we're working on nipping that in the bud, but it's SO hard to be patient with her when she's screaming at us! Especially when it's over something stupid like wanting water in a real cup and not a sippy. I guess I deserve that, since I had a super high pitch blood curdling scream as a child. But hey, it makes me a good soprano;) So needless to say, life's been stressful for our little family! But we're surviving - hopefully to the best of our ability. Trying to stay positive. Trying being the operative word here.

But yeah, the issues we've been having with Emma lately are making me question how we'll survive the transition from 1 kid to 2. And whether I even want to consider having more later. At this point, I don't even want to think about it. I keep hoping these issues are just teething related, but I don't know. I think they mostly are, but there's also the fact that she's a 2 year old and she probably also senses the impending change to our family dynamics. Once we have the baby, we can all adjust accordingly. Yet another reason I want him to come out sooner rather than later!

I also want my face back. I know I won't fully get my body all to myself until he's at least a year, since I plan to nurse him for at least that long. But I'm sick of having a puffy swollen face. I don't even look like myself anymore. My face was chubbier than I wanted it to be BEFORE I got pregnant - now it's even worse with all this swelling! I want my wrist to go back to normal, too. This whole carpal tunnel thing is getting old fast. I can't even wash dishes without being in extreme pain. Or change a diaper or give Emma a bath. Thankfully, I have a sweet husband who takes care of that for me:)

I want to be able to zip my coat up again. It's COLD here! We've had "feels like -20" days recently. And I can't even zip up my coat. Thankfully, I stayed home on the worst days! I also want to be able to wear my nice gloves again. I can't fit them over my wrist brace and the other only barely fits my other swollen hand. I CAN wear stretchy gloves, at least, but they itch so I only wear them when necessary. I can't tell you HOW grateful I am that I can still wear my cute flat boots, though!! A definite must-have with all the snow we get each year.

I want my wardrobe choices to expand. I'm realistic and experienced enough to know I won't get back to my ideal size right away (if ever). But as my belly gets bigger, my wearable wardrobe gets smaller. Since I'm due in 3 weeks, there's no point (or money) to bother with getting larger maternity clothes. I just have to make due with what I've got. But it makes getting dressed a frustrating experience. Thankfully, I don't have to go out all that often and I live in PJs when I'm home. Unfortunately, my PJ options are decreasing all the time. Just 3 more weeks, just 3 more weeks...or less, if I have my way!

Anyway, this was supposed to turn more positive LOL! I DO have some sweet things to share, so let's move on to those now.

Gotta give a little history on the first story. Back in October, Emma decided that she can't stand to be in her room with the door shut. It's not a fear of the dark thing because she does it for naps as well. So we'll leave the door open a crack while she falls asleep and then close it once we know she's totally out. Lately, however, since she's been teething and not sleeping as well in general, she wakes up when we try to close it. So most of the time, I just don't bother trying and leave it open. Fast forward to last night. As you probably know (if you read my posts often enough, that is), I haven't been able to sleep until some crazy hour every night since I hit 3rd tri. I frequently take relaxing baths during my late nights, which then evolve into showers for the hair washing portion. Well last night, I had just gotten out of one of these bath/showers and was drying off when I heard a soft tapping/knocking sound at the door. At 4:30 in the morning. I knew what it was before I opened the door. Sure enough, there was a wide-awake little Emma right outside the bathroom door. With a couple of bath toys in tow. It was cute, but it took us a good hour and a half or more to get her back to sleep...we missed most of church as a result.

*sigh* and it's around that same time now and I think she might be waking up. Oh please no. I already JUST found out about something that absolutely infuriates me. Like, while I was in the middle of this entry found out. I got auto-charged for webhosting that I am CANCELING before I could even get in the system to cancel it (long explanation, don't want to get into it)...and we set it up so that payment was supposed to be MANUAL, not auto. Auto-pay = EVIL. Called customer service (at 4 AM), getting refund, but I didn't have the money (one of the reasons I was canceling in the first place - that and I haven't used it in over a year anyway) so now I'm overdrawn...grrrrrrr. And have nothing to cover it with in the meantime. Refund is being expedited and they'll TRY to do so within 24 hours. But who knows how long it will REALLY take. Yeah, I'm MAD. I can't handle a cranky 2 year old in the middle of the night right now. But it's not like I can sleep right now, either. Too worked up over this mess.

LOL, and I WAS going to write about some positive things in this post. Don't think that's gonna happen now! I'm too upset about everything mentioned above. I need a vacation - and I'm a stay at home mom!!! Thankfully, John only has 5 more days of classes/finals before the semester ends. But then he'll pick up hours at work (which is a GOOD thing!) and we'll have baby and Christmas and and and...yeah.

On the plus side, it sounds like Emma is going to stay down after all. I certainly hope so! I need LESS stress right now, not more.

Next post will be POSITIVE, I promise! But I can't just sugar-coat my life and pretend everything is perfect when it clearly isn't. I DO have happy things to write; I'm just currently bogged down with some of the stressful things and needed to get them out before I can write about the happy things. Otherwise, any happy posts would sound fake. If that makes sense. It's 5 AM, so I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't!!

Now to find some food, de-stress, and hopefully get some sleep soon! OB appt in the afternoon, so hopefully I'll post something again very soon. Night, er morning, everyone!