So I’ve been a big slacker lately. And when I say big? I mean that quite literally.

Told you we grow ‘em big in my family. Good thing I only have about three weeks left. Wait, did I say three weeks? Silly me. I meant THREE MONTHS. Seriously. At this point in pregnancy, I am bigger than most of my friends are when they are ripe and ready to deliver.

I can’t complain though. This pregnancy has been much better than my last, and I know a lot of people have it much worse. Even though I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately, I have been fairly comfortable. I haven’t puked in a month, and the serious heartburn only started two nights ago.

You know what sucks though? This.

Nice eh? I had terrible tendonitis in my knee playing sports throughout college, so I always wore a strap on my patella to take the pressure off. That resulted in a nice little bulging vein inside my knee. No big deal right? Until pregnancy #1. The sucker spread and took over my right leg. And it has gotten progressively worse with my 2nd and 3rd pregnancies.

The thing about varicose veins? I used to think to think it was just a cosmetic thing, and that people got them fixed for vanity purposes. But oh my gosh they hurt like the devil. This picture was taken after NOT being on my feet for several hours. If I’m on my feet for more than ten minutes or so, they bulge a couple inches and make me want to scream obscenities at anyone who looks at me the wrong way.

*Sidenote for the sickos* If you’re the type that enjoys watching people eat bugs, get hurt, or other things that normal people find repulsive, do a Google image search for ‘varicose veins’. And eat your heart out.

In the meantime, I’m wearing this sucker daily because it is impossible to stay off your feet while chasing two small children and running a business.

From toes to upper thigh. Imagine the tighest thickest thing you ever squeezed into. (Girdles ladies? Spandex bodysuits a couple sizes too small maybe?) It is a compression stocking on steroids. It adds 10 degrees to my body temperature, but boy does it help with pain. So totally worth it, despite the strange looks and comments I get.

If you see me and want to make fun of me for wearing just one? Watch out, I’ve been known to turn around quickly and take people out with this belly of mine. All quite innocently of course. Because me? I’m just a sweet innocent pregnant girl.

I don’t know what it is about the 4th of July in a small town, but I love it. Maybe it is nostalgia. Or maybe it is the momentary escape from my frustration with the government, this presidential election, and all the crap going on right now. For one day, the 4th of July, I don’t think about it. I love being surrounded by real people. People with common sense and good values. I love hearing the good things about our country for a day, rather than all the America-bashing that has been going on the past few years.

And I love to see our brave soldiers and veterans honored. At the parade we went to, someone was handing out little flags to all the kids. At the base of each flag was taped a slip of paper with the name, hometown, and date of death of a brave soldier who died protecting us.

Here is our little Stinkbug at the parade in my neighboring hometown.

In the evening, we have a spot on the Snake River where we hang out until the fireworks start. We got a workout, trying to keep our little Monkey away from the water.

Stinkbug was excited all day to bring out the sparklers sprinklers. After about 18 times trying to correct her, I gave up and was calling them sprinklers by the end of the night. She loved twirling her sprinklers around as she danced.

We ended the night watching a fantastic fireworks show over the river, put on by a local company. It is synchronized to music, and is the biggest show west of the Mississippi. Not bad for small town Idaho, huh?

The only dark spot on the evening? (Quite literally.) Monkey pooped out of her diaper mid-fireworks show. On my lap no less. Her snacking began at the parade at 10:00 am, and ran for about twelve hours. It was the one day in my life that I did not put the brakes on the sugar consumption. And boy I paid. I guess sometimes it pays to be anal. At least I had a great fireworks show providing enough light to clean up the mess.

We had our ultrasound a week and a half ago, and we’re having a boy!

Stinkbug was disappointed with the news and said she wanted another sister “so we could name her Flower”. Right. That would have happened.

I didn’t really care about the gender either way. A small and petty part of me didn’t want to have to shop for boy stuff and get peed on all the time. But I knew it would be fun to add a boy to the mix, and of course I’m thrilled.

Then there was Curtis. He tried to act nonchalant about it, but I could tell he was really excited. You know how men are. They all secretly want a boy to teach all the boy things to.

Here is a belly shot, almost 22 weeks along.

And a side view.

Do you think it’s a bad sign that three people have asked me in the past week if I’m about to deliver? A couple of them got pretty embarrassed when I told them I’m just over halfway through. It’s kind of funny to make them squirm. If I keep up the pattern of my other pregnancies, I still have about 20-25 pounds to go. And to all you people who claim you’re only supposed to gain 20-25 pounds total? Bite me.

My last couple of posts have been negative, so here are a couple things that have made me smile, to balance out my previous complaining about our weather (which by the way is now beautiful).

Stinkbug has been taking swimming lessons the past couple weeks. When we got home the first day, I had her take a quick shower to wash off the chlorine. She asked what chlorine was, and I told her it is something that helps keep the pool clean. Yesterday we rushed straight from swimming to do a hundred other things, so she didn’t get to shower until later. She said “Mom, I need to hurry and shower so I can wash the poisin off.” It took a minute for me to realize that she meant the chlorine.

Then the other day, we had the radio on softly in the background. The DJ said “The Police are coming up next.” Stinkbug’s jaw dropped, and she asked why the police were coming. She began to panic, and wanted to know who they were coming to get. She didn’t believe me that The Police are just a group of guys that sing.

The things that come out of her mouth blow my mind. She is so smart, so random, and so observant to things that I don’t even notice. Sometimes it brings me to tears. Partly because I am so in awe that this little person came from us. That she was sent to our family. Tears because I am so tired, physically and emotionally, and she wears me out sometimes. And a lot of the tears are tears from laughing so hard. I love the laughing tears.

My second bit of joy came from my 21 month old, Monkey. Yesterday I pulled out the little potty chair for her. I didn’t think she was anywhere near ready, but I figured I’d let her get used to seeing it. She loves little chairs her size. So I told her it was a potty chair and stripped her down to let her sit on it. She thought she was pretty cool, but I wasn’t sure if she had any idea what it was for.

Today when we came in the house, she ran straight for the bathroom door and said “Pa-ee” (potty). So what the heck, I took off her diaper and let her sit. Her sister came in and sat on the toilet next to her, and Monkey listened to her pee. A few seconds later Monkey stood up, looking confused and worried. She had peed in her little toilet! *Cue praising, hugs, and an offer for some candy.* The whole thing seemed a little traumatic for her once she peed, and I wanted her to have a positive connection with peeing. We’re definitely not above a little bribery around here.

I still think it will be a while before she is really ready for serious potty training. I’m not getting my hopes up of having her out of diapers before the baby comes. But it is something, right? It gave me hope & put me in a great mood. Funny how a little pee combined with good weather can turn your world around, huh?

Life is good.

I retract my previous complaint about the weather, and bad feelings toward Al Gore in May. But only to lodge a new updated complaint. It snowed here yesterday. On June 11th. So now I want to talk to good old Al.

While eating breakfast this morning, I opened my blinds to see snow falling. Yes, you read that correctly. I said snow. On May 12th.

I oughta give that Al Gore a piece of my mind.

So I’ve been a little frumpy lately. Ok, a lot frumpy. A couple months of feeling sick and hiding out in sweats and t-shirts do funny things to you. Wait, who am I kidding? I love sweats and t-shirts even when I’m not prego. Alright, I wear them 70% of the time when I’m not pregnant, and 99.9% of the time when I am. How’s that for honesty?

But you know how it feels, just feeling icky? Even when I try to fix myself up, I’m very aware of the belly (in the stage where people can’t tell if I’m prego or just gaining weight), the swelling, and the varicose veins. Oh the wonderful veins. I won’t get into those, because they deserve an entire post to themselves. They may be the death of me.

Today my husband comes home from work with flowers. Loads of flowers. In pots, hanging pots, vases, and some are seeds. I guess that ‘teacher appreciation day’ fell on some kind of national flower day too. So the kids brought flowers. Pretty cool, right?

My four year old Stinkbug’s reaction as she gasped? “Dad, did your kids bring you all those flowers because Mom is so beautiful?”

And my sweet husband said “Yes, they sure did.”

My friend Sarah called it. One of several reasons that I’ve been slacking lately, is that my head has been hanging over the toilet a lot. Yep, there’s a bun in the oven. This is sooner than we expected, but we’re thrilled!

We usually wait until 4-5 months to tell people. That was easier with the first two.

With Stinkbug, I started showing around 5-6 months. With Monkey, around 4 1/2 months. This one? Ten minutes. Well it felt like it anyway. I was pooching at 7 WEEKS! I kid you not. I’m almost 14 weeks now. But when people around us starting noticing the belly & asking, we figured we better start telling family before they found out from others.

By the way. Maybe that’s a question that shouldn’t be asked unless you already know the answer? I’m just sayin. That’s dangerous territory.

I’m taking a break from slackerdom to show my face. Or my keyboard anyway. It has been a while. I could rattle off a legitimate list of excuses. But what it boils down to, is two things: Taking on too many things at once (surprise surprise), and sickness (some for me and a lot for Monkey).

Last week can only be described as a week of hell. I won’t even go into all the details, but I will tell you how I went out with a bang on Saturday. It involved three things.

Exhibit A: My favorite sweatshirt. Warm, cozy, comfortable, and of course it has ‘Dunder Mifflin’ on the front, from my favorite show. I love the big pocket in front. Perfect for keeping my hands warm, or holding stuff I want to keep handy like keys or my phone.

Exhibit B: My cell phone

So far so good, right? Well it gets better. Just wait for Exhibit C. The loo.

See where this is going?

We were visiting my parents, & I had to use the bathroom. I lifted my sweatshirt to unbutton my pants. Out jumped my cell phone, and before I knew it my hand was in the bottom of the toilet going after it. It all happened before I could even think. If I weren’t so grossed out, I’d be proud of my fast reaction.

Unfortunately, my dad is a “If it’s yellow let it mellow” type of guy. And I’m an anal freakazoid with OCD, who had to scrub my hand until the remaining flesh was hanging on for dear life.

Miraculously, my phone seems to have survived. After wiping it down with Clorox wipes & taking a hair dryer to it, it was acting a little weird. I thought it was a goner. But after it dried for another day, it may just be ok. Except that I’ll have nightmares that somehow toilet water is still trapped inside of it. Waiting to escape into my ear when I least expect it.

Ewww.

I’m so ready for a good week and/or spring to show it’s face around here.

I just realized last night while doing Stinkbug’s hair that I’ve been using the same hairspray for about 20 years. Although in my teen years, I went through much more of it. Yep, you know what I’m talking about. I had… the claw. I’m about 6′1″, but was over 6′3″ with the claw.

How that hair style co-existed with the weather of Idaho is beyond me. Talk about resilience. I’d say about 80% of the girls in my high school sported the claw.

My hair spray of choice? Rave. While I do like Paul Mitchell hairspray, I always end up coming back to Rave. It’s cheap and it does the job. Although the job now is more about pigtails for my girls than for maintaining the height of my hair. In the 80’s and early 90’s I went through a bottle of hairspray every couple months. Now my two girls and I go through maybe one bottle a year.

What cosmetics or products have you stuck with over the years? Is there something you love, despite it not being a fancy brand? Come on, don’t be shy. There must be someone out there still using ‘Wet n Wild’ makeup. (Is that still around?) Fess up. What are your favorites?