Nine Years (and four weeks)

I can hardly believe it's been nine years since Jerry and I got married.  We had a funny start to our relationship as many of you know.  I mean, who has to go to the other side of the world to meet their significant other, even though we'd been on the exact same college campus for 3 years and had never run into each other (well, maybe we had, but we never knew it).  Whenever anyone asks us how we met, Jerry LOVES to tell the story of how he saw me in Hartsfield Atlanta Airport (at least, that's what it was named back when we did study abroad), then started asking my sorority sisters that I was traveling with about me until he finally worked up the courage to come say something to me.  He called me by name and since I knew I had never talked to him in my life, and me being the cynic that I am, immediately responded "How in the hell do you know my name?"  Good way to start off a relationship, right? 

Thankfully he continued talking to me, we hung out in Berlin, then I saved a seat on the bus for him when we were riding from Berlin to Dresden.  That's right - I was almost a senior in college, and here I am saving a freaking seat on a bus for him.  Whatever, it obviously worked, right? 

Our first date was in Paris and the rest is, as they say, history.  I've always told him it was a mistake to have our first date in Paris because, really, how do you top that??  But he has...he's been the most amazing husband and father I could have ever asked for.  We've been through so much in the past 13 years we've been together.....

• 5 moves (dear Lord, really?!?)
• 2 little girls
• 1 little boy on the way
• a Crohn's diagnosis
• two bad Crohn's surgeries
• two long distance years
• a dog (who is currently on my bad list for developing a taste for eating gross stuff out of the garbage....I think he's got an attitude about the impending baby too). 
• Two jobs for him, four for me (I hope that doesn't sound as bad for me as it looks)

I'm sure there are other things that I am missing.  He still likes surprising me in little ways.  Like last night - he wasn't supposed to be home until about 10pm from my calculations since he was driving back from Florida, but he appeared in the kitchen around 6:30pm, well after I had resigned myself to a night of solo parenting and had just decided that the girls weren't really dirty enough for me to have to bend over the tub for a bath :)  It was a little thing, but still made me and the girls very happy last night. 

So Whizzy & Pop Pop, thanks for raising an incredible son for me to get to marry :)  He still does some things that drive me over the edge (is it REALLY so hard to call and let me know if you are going to be late, cause that goes over much better than saying you are leaving at a certain time, then when it's well past the time you should have already been home and I have dinner waiting, then you call to say you are just now leaving....not that that particular scenario happens EVER or anything!), but I know just how lucky I am to have snagged him :) 

And today marks, at max, four more weeks before we are a family of FIVE.  I started washing Jack-Jack's clothes last night, and it suddenly hit me how real this is all becoming. Not that it hasn't been real with all of the ridiculous pregnancy issues I've had this time around, but organizing and washing up the tiny 0-3 month clothes again for the third time around hit me like a ton of bricks last night!

Five weeks and counting

So if Jack-Jack stays put until his predetermined arrival date, then I have exactly 5 weeks from this Friday to get ready for the little guy.  (No, his name is not going to be Jack, or even Jack-Jack....it's the name the girls have come up with based on the movie The Incredibles, where the baby boy in that movie is named Jack-Jack.  I've said throughout this whole pregnancy that it's not going to matter what we name this poor child, he will always be Jack-Jack to the girls....and probably me too!)  And that's a big if too - we all know Anna decided she needed to arrive three weeks early, which would make Jack-Jack a Christmas baby (well, close to Christmas, at least). 

I've never had a panic attack, or at least I don't think I have, but I sure feel like having one right now.  There's a lot to do....get the nursery ready, wash clothes, pack my bag, get the house in order since it probably will never be in order again for the next 18 years, and then there are the holidays in the midst of all of this.  The girls are acting like wild Indians, and I know it's because of Jack-Jack's impending arrival, even if they can't verbalize that's why they have lost their minds.  I have to come up with a contingency plan in case this kid does come early and we're in the hospital  for Christmas eve/Christmas (Lady & Whizzy - be expecting an email from Santa soon on where he'll be hiding the gifts in our house in case Jerry and I aren't there!!)

And this whole being pregnant while 35 thing?  It's for the birds.  I can't imagine being any older and doing this, cause I already feel like I'm falling apart.  I mean, I usually am having some sort of health issue anyways, but this is topping the cake.  Between the original issue of the SCH, sciatica, horrible carpal tunnel in my right hand, and a sinus infection that's been hanging around for SEVEN weeks, I'm done. 

I know I am just anxious about life with three little ones, how to make the finances work, and all that entails.....but I really wish I had enough vacation and sick time to just take off work for the next three weeks and have time to get ready and relax for 5 minutes before this baby arrives. 

I guess I'm "that" mom

But at least I know there's one other mom out there just like me in this case....

Carrie got a permission slip sent home with her a few weeks ago to go on a field trip to a pumpkin patch.  It sounded like lots of fun and I was ready to sign her up, until I read how they were going to be traveling to the pumpkin patch.  It was by the little school bus they have for their school....which meant only lap belts and not car seats.  This immediately made my mommy radar go up and I was like "do they really think I'm going to let my tiny little kid, who at her rate of growth will probably still be in a car seat at 16, get on a school bus with nothing but lap belts?"  I hemmed and hawed about this for a few days, and then was talking with one of my friends, Kathy, who's daughter is also in Carrie's class and is Carrie's current BFF.  Before I even said anything she echoed my sentiments and felt the same way I did about letting the girls ride in a school bus with only lap belts.  Thankfully she has a work schedule that's much more flexible than mine and was able to volunteer to drive two children (mine and hers!) to the field trip.  Crisis averted - Carrie got to go on the field trip and I didn't have to be the mean mommy and not let her go because I didn't feel comfortable letting her ride in the bus. 

I know thousands of kids do the school bus thing every single day going to and from school, including kids not much bigger than mine.  Maybe I'm just a giant worry wart, but I'm okay with that :)  I only have one Carrie!!  I guess that's another bonus to having her and Anna (and eventually baby boy) going to the school that they do - no school bus service since it's private, so her only option is to ride in a car seat in our car :) 

So....

I'm sure many of you have heard that old saying "Make plans and God laughs"???  Well, that seems pretty indicative of my life thus far this year. 

I "planned" to get back into running and do a half-marathon this coming November at the inaugural Savannah Rock n' Roll marathon event.  Instead, I ended up having surgery on my knee, promptly bringing any and all thoughts of getting back into running out of my mind for good. 

I "planned" on getting Anna potty trained and out of diapers this year, never to buy another package of diapers ever again in my life, unless it was for someone else. 

WRONG. 

Instead, I sit here writing this at 26.5 weeks pregnant.  Wha???  This was not in my life plan, having a third child.  We were getting so close to no diapers, getting out of the terrible twos (although from Carrie's recent behavior it seems that the age of 4 is more terrifying), and fully moving on from the baby stage of raising kids. 

To say I was surprised to find out we were having a third is the understatement of the century.  I mean, the irony here is undeniable:  I had to go through hell and high water with fertility treatments to get pregnant with Carrie (thankfully not having to go all the way to IVF, but we were certainly researching it), to managing to be apparently one of the 1% of the population that manages to get pregnant while on the pill (word to the wise, ladies - it DOES happen!).  Seriously? 

When I went to my first prenatal appointment I met with the nurse practitioner, standard procedure for the first appt in a pregnancy (at least at my practice).  She came in at about 28 weeks pregnant herself, with the exact same story as me - was perfectly fine with her two little girls, not planning on having another, and then BAM!  Guess what?!?  She and I both could hear God laughing at both of us at that point.  It didn't ease all of my apprehensions about adding a third little person to our family, but it certainly helped.  I remember her saying to me "it'll all work out somehow!  and just maybe this will be a boy for you like it is for me!"

About the time I started getting somewhat more comfortable with the idea of having another munchkin running around I started having some problems.  Guess that comes with the territory of being of "advanced maternal age."  As it turns out I had a subchorionic hematoma.  Let me save you some time - DON'T GOOGLE IT; you will come away from it, as you do if you google pretty much any medical condition, convinced that everyone involved was going to DIE.  That's not to minimize it, cause it was disconcerting and upsetting, but it managed to resolve itself by the time I was about 21 weeks along (hence why I have not, up to this point, mentioned anything about this pregnancy on my blog!)  Thankfully, as of my last ultrasound scan, there was no sign of the stupid hematoma, and that's after literally about an hour of both the ultrasound tech and the high risk doc looking in every nook and cranny to make sure it wasn't hiding anywhere. 

So now I feel like I've really settled into the idea of having three kids.  I am under no pretense that it's gonna be easy or anything like that.  I know that our lives are going to be thrown upside down yet again.  I know that it's going to, yet again, be a giant pain in the butt trying to figure out do we do nanny vs. daycare for this kid.  I'm not looking forward to having to get up multiple times in the middle of the night to nurse, or get up at the crack of dawn before going to work so I can pump enough for the baby to have each day.  But I also know that once I get to hold that little baby in my arms in about 12 short weeks (as long as he stays in there until he's supposed to come out, on or about 1/6/12!!), that it will all be worth it and somehow, someway, in the immortal words of Tim Gunn, we'll "make it work." 

Oh, and the crazy part?  This time we elected to find out the gender of the baby.  And when I say "we" I actually mean "I" and I convinced Jerry that for my own mental health I needed to know if it was going to be a girl or a boy. 

As it turns out, the nurse practitioner was right - it is a boy this time around.  :) 

Our big girls

I know, I know...it's been forever.  What can I say?  Lots going on, as usual! 

This has been a huge week in the Reeves' household.  Two big milestones.  First was Carrie's first day of Pre-K on Monday.  She had been going to her new "big girl" class for a week, but without the curriculum and without the uniform.  Monday was the first day of at least the uniform ("official curriculum" doesn't start for another week, but you could have fooled me!).  Here's a picture of the newest member of pre-K:

I can't get over how freaking grown up she looks.  Boo.  And here's the rest of her class as well:

Love that they have such small class sizes compared to some other schools!  What's crazy about this class is how calm it is.....Anna gets dropped off first, and of course the 2 year old class is chaotic at best.  But even Carrie's old classroom, which had pretty much the same children in it, was nuttiness at times.  This class, not so much.  You go in at any point in time, morning or afternoon, and they are CALM.  I don't know how her teacher does it.  Benadryl, maybe?  I kid.  But seriously, another mom and I were talking about this the other day.  Just two weeks ago they were running around like wild banshees, and now they are acting like they know what they are supposed to be doing in the classroom setting.  It's amazing.  Too bad that doesn't carry over to the home environment, where Carrie seems to forget how to use her ears!!

Anna turned two as well, and we had her birthday party over the weekend.  I still can't believe she's two!!  I don't know why - she certainly has the attitude to go with her age :)  I think she tries to overcompensate to be sure to be heard over her big sister.  We had cupcakes in her classroom on her birthday to celebrate the big day, and they were a big hit:

The birthday party was great fun, and it was nice to see my family from Atlanta who made the trip.  Today we had to take both girls in to get them up to date on their vaccines.  Never a good trip.  Carrie knew what was coming, and she had to get two vaccines.  Anna only had to get one. Both girls were unhappy to say the least, but the tears magically disappeared when the stickers came out.  Turns out Anna has grown three inches since her last visit in March.  I knew she was hitting a growth spurt, but good grief!  I told the doc that at this rate there's a very good chance we'll end up passing on hand-me-ups instead of hand-me-downs between her and Carrie!

Hug your kids tight

I think I'm in a bit of shock right now.  I just learned that a co-worker's 2 year old grandson drowned last Friday in the family pool.  This just absolutely breaks my heart.  My co-worker used to tell me all sorts of stories about his grandchildren, and how this particular little one kept getting into so much mischief because, after all, he was a 2 year old boy and mischief is in his job description, right?  He was so proud to talk about his grandchildren and it was easy to see how much he loved them. 

My heart breaks for his family.  It also makes me realize how quickly loved ones can leave us.  Give your kids (or any other family member/friend, for that matter) an extra squeeze tonight at bedtime.

What the.....?!

I either should have paid more attention in my developmental psych class, or taken more of them, so I would know when to expect certain things to come out of my childrens' mouths and know when they can make certain connections.  We were sitting at the dinner table last night and I had forgotten to turn off the TV, which we usually do.  The nightly news was on, and a story came on about Glen Campbell, who was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.  The anchor was delivering the story and mentioned something about the fact that Glen had been noticing he had short term memory loss for awhile, but that the Alzheimer's diagnosis had been in the last six months. 

I kid you not - Carrie stops mid-chew and exclaims "Short term memory loss!!!  That's what Dory has in Finding Nemo!!" 

I texted Jerry to tell him what had just happened (he was at a business dinner...at Lady & Sons....which I have been begging to go to since we moved here.....but that's another story).  He called me back and thought I was making it up.  No, m'dear, not making it up.  Can't make this kind of stuff up!

Huh? 

How do they remember stuff like that?  Especially since I can't really remember the last time we watched that movie, as everything is all Princess, all the time right now.