Today is my wonderful mother-in-law's birthday! Happy Birthday, Becky!
It has been a good week. I need to write blips each day of what has happened, as I tend to forget by the end of the week and probably bore you with the mundane stuff and don't remember anything else.
But, here we go again...
Monday evening was rather nice. My mom came to see us and spend some time with us. My children are always SO glad to have her here. And so am I. I think it was also nice for her to be here and see the kids, as my dad was out of town with work again and she gets a little lonely when he's gone.
Tuesday was yet another uneventful visit with my midwife. Baby Coco is still doing well and growing. I'm doing well, also.
Mashuga and I bought stocking stuffers at Target after my appointment. It's so nice to have a child young enough that I can do Santa shopping right under his nose. To some extent. I think he might be a bit suspicious about some things.
Wednesday was just wonderful. I got to go with Kaitybean and her class to a performance of the Nutcracker. It was lovely and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Kaitybean enjoyed it until about the last 10 minutes, but still sat quietly and watched. The boys who were in my group were about ready to crawl out of their chairs by the end of the performance. They behaved themselves, but their eyes were bugging out of their sockets by the time it was over. Coco LOVED the music. He bounced around inside me the whole time. And when part of the Nutcracker came on during our trip home, he started up again. I wonder if children born around the holidays are just a little more joyful than most. Being surrounded by this season during your last few days in the womb and your first few days of life has to have some effect.
JDub has spent a lot of time in his woodshop this week making top-secret presents for family, friends and co-workers. They're turning out nicely. Mashuga LOVES spending time in Daddy's shop with him. He'll spend hours just making piles of sawdust or playing with wood or tools. He's definitely all boy.
On Thursday, Kaitybean and Scud had a Christmas performance at school. They both sang and danced and had a lot of fun. I must say, Kaitybean is really a good swing dancer. It was a ball to watch her. After a while the program got a little tedious, though. All 7 grades at once is a bit much for a Mashuga to handle. So, we went outside on the playground after Kaitybean was done performing.
Thursday evening we had our second appointment with our wonderful doula. She is a dear friend and I am so glad she will be there when our baby is born. She is such a comforting influence and such a wealth of knowledge. She gave us A LOT to think about and prepare for after our baby is born. You mean there's an "after"? I've been so focused on just getting things ready enough to get him here that I haven't planned much for postpartum. Whoosh. I think I'm going to sleep through January after all of this!
Friday evening Kaitybean got to have a sleepover with her favorite cousin. Scud and I dropped her off and played with all the girls while my SIL went shopping. Then, we went to Ben and Jerry's for an ice cream cone date.
While we were there, I realized what a breakthrough Scud has had in the eating department. I think I've mentioned the "eating until I hurt" conversation I had with Scud a few months ago. Well, since then I've been trying to teach him the difference between feeling full and feeling satisfied and that we don't have to eat until we hurt, only until we're satisfied. Then, we can eat more when we're hungry again. Well, we were enjoying our ice cream and Scud was about 3/4 finished with his. He walked over to the garbage can and threw it in. "Why did you do that?" I asked him, "Didn't you like it?" "I loved it," he replied. "I was just satisfied." Well, okay! Now if he can just teach me to do the same! :)
It started snowing while we were on our date and we woke up the next morning to about 8 inches of snow! As soon as we were done with breakfast, all three children donned snowsuits and went outside to enjoy the winter wonderland. They played while I shoveled the sidewalks and driveway. I thought about calling and asking someone else to do it for me, since JDub had to leave for work early and didn't have time, but then I just decided to do it. And it turned out that I rather enjoyed being outside and working. Though, I was more than a little bit disappointed when it stormed again last night and covered up all of my hard work!
After playing in the snow, the kids came in and resumed the usual picking and fighting with each other. Kaitybean and Scud came into me yelling at each other. "Remember, we're going to be together forever and it's important to love one another," I reminded them. "Yeah, well, Scud's not part of one another!" Kaitybean retorted. I couldn't help it. I laughed out loud. I even snorted a little. After the initial shock, they both started laughing with me and walked out of the room playing together happily, friends again. So, maybe I need to give up on this whole "teaching and training" approach and just laugh at them when they're being ridiculous. Laughter sure does seem to go a long way in our house.
Saturday evening we went to my family's Christmas party. It's always a highlight of the Christmas season for our family. We love seeing everyone and there's always a yummy dinner and presents and a visit from Santa Claus. We also sang and broke pinatas last night. It was really great to be there, and more than anything to see everyone.
The drive home, however, was not so blissful. It was barely snowing when we left my parents house at 11:30pm. It didn't take too long for that to change. Soon, we were traveling 20 mph on a snow-packed highway and praying with every breath that we'd make it home safely. About halfway home, I was changing lanes so that I could get off the highway and let JDub drive. My lane change turned into one of those terrifying, slow-motion spins. We ended up facing the other cars coming toward us and I kept thinking the whole time of this demotivator . "It may be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others." I almost laughed out loud. Thankfully, the cars behind us were able to slow down enough to let us get off onto the left shoulder, where I promptly got out of the driver's seat and relinquished it to JDub. To make a long story short, we made it. The visibility got down to almost nothing. We thought of stopping several times to stay at relative's homes on the way or at a hotel. The idea of getting off the freeway and waking up in the morning just to do it again seemed even more miserable than just making it home. We got home at about 2:45 am, put the kids in bed. I was asleep within second after my head hit the pillow and didn't wake up once until morning.
Tonight we have a party for Jeffrey's company. The annual Christmas party is a rather interesting thing. It's the one time each year where everyone brings their wives/significant others and pretends that there really isn't any underlying tension about how things are working (read: not working) at the store. But it really is fun, because they really do all like each other despite the work frustrations. And we laugh a lot. Ought to be good, once again.
So, thanks for stopping by, my tens of readers. I'm glad to be able to share my life with you here.
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