Somewhat different

We have had scheduled inductions before, but it wasnt generally decided until I was past my due date. So this 3 weeks early is a whole new ballgame. It does feel weird though to realize today is our last saturday as a family of 10, that next saturday our new addition should be here!

Im getting used to the idea that we are inducing in less than a week now and feel much calmer bout the prospect. I think it was the intial shock causing much of the panic. We seem to have mostly everything we need. i picked up another pkg of newborn diapers, a blanket, and one more sleeper. i found a few more clothing items and a blanket at todays rummage sale.

Im sure there is something i forgot, but I did remember nursing pads and the like, balmex and diaper. I already have some diapers and some wipes.

Well since my yawns are comign more frequently than the typing, ill end here.
MJ

Fast tracking

Im still slightly in shock from this change of plans... it wasnt quite what I anticipated. I went from thinking it could be anywhere from now to 4 weeks from now, with the liklihood being toward the end of april and the 4 weeks to inducing in about 2 weeks. Okay I can deal with that, slightly freaking out with all I wanted to get done but okay 2 weeks isnt so bad and we can plan.

So I go in to my prenatal and discover that the doc is concerned enough bout the extra fluid to move it up an entire week. So now we are inducing this little guy on Sat april 7 bright and early in the morning. To say Im a little freaked out by this is an understatement. I think once the intial shock wears off and I begin the planning, it will settle down the freaking out lol. I now have a week to get everything all lined up and in a row. Add to this that this is easter weekend, and it complicates things a tad with peoples plans and whatnot.

But God is good and will give me the grace sufficient to accomplish what I need to and isnt surprised by this news at all, like I was. I am fairly surprised that they scheduled it for a saturday on a holiday weekend. The hospital in the cities wouldnt do that at all, less staff and whatnot.

Okay off to figure out what to do next lol.

MJ

Praising God

When I went in for my OB appt yesterday, Gideon was head down!!! Now I am praying he stays there. I did find out that my extra fluid has increased significantly, so that unfortunely makes it much easier for him to turn back around and adds more risks to the delivery. But God is good ... so Im trying to leave that in his hands.

The plan then is to see the OB next friday for a biophysical profile and visit. Then to schedule an induction for the following week when im 38 weeks along. Cant say Im terribly said bout having the baby 2 weeks early. God is good ... all the time! Those last few weeks are usually pretty miserable and it will be nice to have a plan in place(course God could have other ideas in mind lol) And with a scheduled induction, it does make logistics with the kids and whatnot much easier.

This does mean I need to get my butt in gear and get some things done. I need to pack bags for the kids that are going to other peoples houses, pack my bag, make a phone number list, make sure I have enough of the little baby stuff out and get the cradle up in our room. Doc did tell me to lie low and rest as much as I can with all the kids . I almost laughed out loud but he did say "I know you have all those kids but" so have to give him credit for that. I am going to try to make sure I catch a brief nap every day and sit to do some of the chores like folding laundry. So im not going crazy with stuff that needs to be done. The good part of that order is Im done workign then...woohoo! Not too terribly sad bout that either.

May God bless your day today!
MJ

The room syndrome

We have a teenager in the house, whom shall remain nameless, who really likes to reside in her room. Most of the time I dont make much of a fuss about it, I figure its part of the age and not a big deal. The problem comes when she needs to be out of her room babysitting or doing some other activity.

Its increasingly become an issue and I am beyond frustrated with it. So my solution... not sure if it will help much ... is to ground her from her room. She will basically have to sleep in the living room, and will not be allowed in her room other than to get clothing. Shes even going to have to change in the bathroom. I guarantee this will cause some fireworks when I annouce this to her. I have tried various other ways of getting thru to her including punishments and with no success. I think Im starting with 3 days and 4 nights including tonite.

At this point, I dont want to give her own room, shes territorial bout the one she shares already. To the point of snapping at her siblings that try to enter, which is so not okay in my book. It makes the most logical sense in terms of room arrangement to do that but we have another kiddo who seeks solitude just as much as she does. So who knows on that front. But I most certainely will be reevaluating whether or not she gets her own room at this point.

Sometimes I wish I had a mom cave to hide in, a place I could go, where I didnt have to be the responsible one making these calls.

Thats all for now folks,
MJ

Happy Birthday Zman

I used to call him "riah roo", he used to be round as a butterball turkey, he was my first 9 lb baby. Now hes smart as a whip, reads with a passion and no longer is that little butterball. Hes actually the skinniest of all the kids which is really funny since at a year he was the chunkiest one I had. Still has the big head ... suppose he needs for all his brain power. Zechariah loves math, loves to read(currently has the highest ar record for his school i think) and definitely loves video games.

He loves those so much he seems to get into a perpetual grounding from overdoing them, or doing them without permission. Zechariah definitely is more like me in choosing to stay in and read or play a video game rather than go outside. He will though venture out with his brothers some of the time.

He was born on a sunday afternoon. I got up that moming and was having timeable contractions, I went on to make my family french toast and call my friend sarah to come get the kids. I was determined to stay at home to labor as long as possible, so that I did. I laid down to try to rest thru them in the afternoon, finally got up, as rest wasnt happening and called the hospital. The contractions were stronger but no closer together, so I wanted them to break the water. They balked at that a bit, finally got a doctor to sign off on it and they broke the water at 3 pm. He came flying out( 2 pushes) later at 345 pm. Nothing like hey Im here moment.

He was 9 lbs 1 oz. I remember some negotiating after delivery, I wanted Charles as the middle name after my grandfather and andrew didnt. He finally said yes as long as he could spell "Zechariah" with an E.

Happy 9th Birthday Zechariah!

Sometimes tired doesnt seem to cover it

You know you are tired when you wake up and your very first thought is, can I get a nap in today? Im at the point in pregnancy when its really hard to find a comfortable position and if one starts out that way, it wont be comfy for long. Add to the dog barking at 4 am and we had a winner of a night. So just a tad sleepy this morning.

Worked last night and am very glad I only have 3 work shifts to go. The work itself isnt hard really, just draining at times, and its likely cause im 35 weeks pregnant too.

Have a doc appt tommorrow, so hopefully I can talk to the doc and figure out what hte plan is in terms of if the baby doesnt come on his own. I would prefer he does, but I also dont want to wait weeks overdue, I know I wont make it that long!

Zemirah is doing pretty well, she hasnt needed pain meds for a couple of days, the bruising is beginning to fade. Now just comes the convincing her she still need to wear the sandals all the time. All of my kids have been like this, but they are big sock/shoe wearers esp in the house, so shes not liking having to keep them on.

God is good alll the time
MJ

Surprise ....

I get a phone call from Nathaniels teacher today, stating she wasnt sure if I had heard bout the situation at school. My heart sank and I immediately started praying in my spirit, stories of school shootings echoing in my head. Thank God, it was nothing of the sort but the way she phrased that scared the snot out of me. Power was out at the middleschool/high school and one of the elementaries, so they had called off schol as a district. So all of the kids were being sent home at 1045.

Nathaniel had wanted to make sure I was home and knew what was going on. So well that added a new dimension to my day. Josiah called soon after, asking for a friend over. Since I was feeling fairly generous, I said yes even though my head is screaming NO! lol. i just stated he had to go home by 2 since I do have to work at 3 pm today.

I havent pushed much on the chore front, and they are playing gameboys/gamecube and reading, so hey why fuss. There will be time enough later for chores, I suppose.

Although, I do need to get in some deeper cleaning as I have friends coming this weekend. Im glad I scheduled a friend to help me clean friday already, that helps as well. So tommorrow, I hope to really get some steam cleaning done, or some wall washing or deep scrubbing of the bathrooms.

Well thats all for now folks
MJ

Broken toes oh my!

Zemirah broke the toe bone at the base of her big toe yesterday. She dropped a chair onto it as she was climbing. They didnt cast it, but she is to wear sandals constantly for two weeks to give a stable base for the toe not to move so much. Yesterday she was walking on it but this morning she doesnt really want to go anywhere. Its nicely colored with blues and purples now and Im sure really sore , as she keeps exclaiming "owie" as she tries to manuever.

Yesterday at the docs office, she kept saying "foot hurt" it was so heartbreaking. If she isnt going to walk much today, it indeed will be a long day carrying her around. Right now shes content to play iwth some legos at the table but Im sure that wont last too long.

Had all of the kids home due to a teacher workshop day yesterday and hubby came home really sick in the morning. Thankfully whatever it was he ate or caught, cleared up with rest and he was feeling tons better by evening. With how yucky he looked in the morning when he got home, I was fearing the worst:The Dreaded Flu. God is good though, and hes back at work today feeling much better.

We ended the crazy day with a family movie night and homemade pizzas. We started a tradition a few yrs ago now and dont get to do it as often as we would like but we divide the pizzas up into quarters and all the kids get to pick their own toppings. Its a lot more work that way, but they have fun making "their own pizzas".

Todays adgenda, providing the motrin i gave Zemirah kicks in, is laundry and dishes and all the work i didnt get done yesterday. Besides the doc appt, I needed to run to walmart for a few groceries and the sandals for Zemirah. Well today is a new day!

God is good ... all the time!
MJ

WWF Smackdown

I left the 5 oldest home last night with instructions to get the house in order, so they could have a "free" Saturday. I didnt have to work and wasnt planning on going to the 2nd part of the conference I went to on friday night. I get home and while it wasnt trashed, it most certainly wasnt in order. Dishes in the sink, koolaid and crumbs on the table, most chore rooms full of clutter.

So that meant a little drill sargeant was in order today. The kids and I managed to get the entired house cleaned well in about 4 hrs. They scrambled near the end cause they expected Andrew to call and check around noon. He had went to the conference and told them he'd come home if they got it done. Unfortunely he forgot what he said and lost track of time, so he didnt call.

Its been a long morning and really dragging keeping them all on task. I cleaned alongside them, doing things like sorting toys, pulling out old ones, loading the dishwasher and assigning tasks. so Im beat mentally and physically, body is extremely sore. Not sure what Im going to do with the afternoon, esp since andrew is staying longer at the conference. Im near tears trying to get the last bit finished and the kids settled down for some quiet play.

MJ

Im sore

I realize thats generally par for the course for this stage of pregnancy. But when I wake up still sore ... well thats just not so helpful. It was a really really stressful night at work as state was there for our recheck. So didnt get to sit down much last night at all. In fact it was so much that I was having regularly timable braxton hicks last night. Not good at all.

Thankfully they went away when I went to bed. And Im ever so thankful to have this weekend off!

Only 6 more weeks to go, I really hope this little guy or not so little lol, comes a bit early. Just not quite this early. 2 more weeks of cooking and hes free to come out then :) I dont usually have babies super early but this preganancy has been a lot harder on my body, so Im hoping moreso than usual.

Well thats all for now folks
MJ

Juggling act

I feel like Ive been juggling lots of balls lately and unfortunely not catching most of them.

Part of me wants to say, oh it will get easier when Im not working outside the home. I think though that is a bit of a misnomer and reality will probably be somewhat different from that thought. Yes I will be at home and hopefully be able to manage better but I think its not just being away from home that is causing me to drop the balls. Its more than that.
Self disclipline has never been my strong suit. I much prefer a looser more flexible schedule, yet planned in advance. I dont do so well by the seat of my pants for sure but I also dont do well with super schedules either. Generally as I know whats coming at me, I can handle most of it.

Its the stuff slipping thru the cracks that makes me wonder, what do I need to do to seal them up. Things like realizing as Im taking Zechariah to his cub scout meeting yesterday;we didnt work on anything over the week that he was supposed to. Or getting a call from Josiahs English teacher stating he didnt turn in a paper and could he please have it in on friday so she can grade. Or Katarina getting the girl scout cookies delivered.

Yes, I realize some of it is their responsiblity but ultimately its my responsiblity to guide them into the maturity that can get these things done. Not nagging, which is useless anyway. Right now it does feel a bit like spinning wheels that go nowhere. Something has to change in terms of how I structure the time, I am wasting way too much time yellling and not getting things done around here. Not sure I have any answers or solutions, just the knowing that things arent working so well this way.

Most of my ideas for solutions involve that self disclipline that I struggle with in the first place. So while I start out great, it usually gets lost in my laziness. Its too easy to get caught up in the daily battles of life and lose incentive to make whatever plan work. Its a lot harder not to let the moments dictate the mood, rather than choosing a mood to work thru the moments. I guess thats Gods department--working on what feels impossible to me, isnt for him.

God is good ... all the time.
MJ

Its amazing

What a little sleep will do for your mood. I didnt wake up with the urge to throttle my darling children :) In fact I made them all give me hugs in order to get a vitamin, such a mean mom I am. In a pretty good mood this morning, I got a chance to go back to bed after hubby went off to work. Mostly cause I was dealing with some hip/joint pain and I thought laying down might help, which it did somewhat.

Already switched over the laundry load and somewhat motivated to get a bunch of laundry done at least today. Maybe ... I can scrub the bathroom too if i get really motivated. Its just so hard to bend down or over at this point. I almost have to sit on the floor just to load my front loader washer, its just such a pain to pick up the piles of laundry to stick in there. Almost always causes braxton hicks at this point.

Looks to be another bright sunny day today, maybe Ill venture out for that walk that I didnt take yesterday!

God is good ... all the time
MJ

Well the good news is ...

I havent killed anyone yet. The bad news is I have wanted to! It started out such a nice day and overall was pleasant. I did some laundry, hung out with the little kids, Ariana got on the bus without a peep. The big kids came home next, even then things were pretty peaceful. I was able to negoitate tantrums,fights, arguments and issue consquences without effectively wanting to kill anyone.

But it was near the end of the night that I lost it. When I discovered that Zemirah had locked herself in the downstairs bathroom(in plain sight of the boys) and was screaming to be let out and all 3 bigger boys ignored her. It took all my strength to not go completely ballastic on them. When we got her out, she face was beet red, she had been screaming so hard and long. I instructed them to pick up and haul their butts to bed in order to preserve what little bit of sanity I had left.

So now the house is finally quiet, everyone is settled down into beds and actually seem to be staying there. Andrew is still off teaching his college course, so im debating a bath with a book to read or perhaps a big b owl of orange sherbet, or maybe a combination of all of that.

God is still good, even when my temper flares, he still comes alongside and whispers take a step back and breathe.

MJ

Frustration Central

Im beginning to think I might have a few extra hormones floating thru my system (ya think?). I dont like to use that as an excuse, although it does have validity to adding a dimension to emotions that wasnt there before. Either way, my behavior, hormones or not, is still my responsiblity. But on to the frustrations of the day, it started wednesday already.

I went to work in a pretty good mood and was ready to tackle the night. Things just went downhill from there, and this time it wasnt the clients doing. My other two coworkers, one of which i usually do like, combined together to be the team of unmotivation and untimely work habits. So by the end of a 6 hr shift, I comtemplated hiding out in the basement til work was over cause I just didnt want to even encounter them.

On to thursday, when in an effort to make sure I was doing my job properly, I (gasp) asked my boss a question. Which she took as license to make me feel like crap since I didnt instantly interpret an generic statment into what she thought was obivious. Enough that I was in tears... that doesnt take much though. I managed to not have that bad of a night due to some good coworkers, who let me vent and rant and rave. They also work great too, so it was much more of a "team" effort that night.

Fast forward to today, Zechariah is throwing up, not sure if its just a bug or one of his typical quick bouts of stomach issues. But either way that threw off the morning a bit. Ariana, who is easily distractable, didnt get her stuff together in a timely m anner. So she barely had time to get out to the bus and had to take whatever gloves I gave her, which happened to be mismatched. Since no one in this house can keep glove sets together, let alone put them where they belong. She was not happy with my choices for her and didnt want to wear them, yet had maybe 30 seconds or a minute before the bus arrived. She then proceeded to throw a knock down drag out full fledged tantrum in the snow in front of the bus and the bus driver. Who very kindly, came out and tried his darndest to convince her to get on the bus. He finally just had to leave. To say I was furious, was an understatement. I felt helpless, i could barely get her to move, let alone listen to a word i was saying. So i brought her back in, realigned her world, letting her know she doesnt control what is going on, I do. She doesnt get to decide shes not getting on the bus or not going to school or not wearing that pair of gloves without swift consquences. Somewhere along the line, apparently she thought she was ruling the roost. I disticntly let her know she was going to school(even if she didnt want to) and she was also going "without the gloves". The very ones she threw the gigantic fit about. So i drove her in, she told me she didnt want me to drive her or come in to talk to her teacher. Yeah right! Thankfully her teacher backed me up in the glove option. I wasnt sure she would let the natural consquence of not having gloves at school(basically not playing in the snow) happen. The two teachers looked a little shocked at the thought of ariana ever being unhappy and i just wanted to laugh manically, cause man at home is a different child.

I was so incredibly frustrated over this situation that i just sat and cried. Heck I still feel like crying now and my frustration leval is over my head right now. I do understand being 33 weeks pregnant is probably not helping my coping leval right now but I feel like telling everyone to just go away for hours and hours and hours. Im not sure Ill get a much needed break due to life. Tonite is my only night off this weekend, so I really need to spend it with the family. That really only leaves tommorrow morning, as sunday morning is church. Sucks ... thus is how it goes somtimes though.

This too shall pass .... I hope!

God is still on the throne even when fits reign supreme at home.
MJ

Thursdays thoughts

Lots going on, not much blogging though. Just really havent felt much like writing, thus time goes by.

Have my prenatal appt today, Im 33 weeks now, only 7 more to go! Andrew thinks he might show up early but I always hope for that and rarely get that. Soo we will see. I just hope he goes head down so we dont have to do a csection. Doc is supposed to go over last weeks ultrasound results today, so will see how that goes as well.

Kids busy as usual, mostly Katarina. She tried out for a school play recently and we learned of the schools activity fees. In order to be in it, she has to pay 65 dollars. I find that quite steep. I realize in the years of budget cuts, they have had to do something, but it seems wrong to have to pay to be in a school play, especially such a high amount. I could swallow activity fees of 20 or somthing but 65 just really seems prohibitively expensive. She might not be able to do it, not just cause of the fee, but mostly cause of timing. The performance is smack dab in the middle of my due date for this little guy. So that definitely complicates things.

The rest arent nearly as busy as she seems to be, but they have their own set of meetings and places to be as well. Today I have my prenatal, the school musical and work and thats a full day right there. Not to mention making meals and getting one off to kidnergarten.

Well enough blabbing,
MJ