I’m 33 weeks now and finding a comfortable position to sleep in is getting increasingly difficult as is the simple act of breathing and moving around.  The good news is that I am only measuring 1 week ahead of schedule now instead of 2 so things are leveling out a bit.  But despite all these complaints, I am generally feeling ok during the day and well enough to get some things done before I completely crash in the late afternoon.  As I get closer to the finish line, time is starting to go by pretty quickly.  And like all the others, I simply can’t fathom what it’s going to be like for another baby to join our family.  I’m sort of shutting my eyes at this point and hoping it all works out ok!

My attempts at cleaning up my lifestyle are going along slowly but surely as well.  We got a Berkey water filter for all our drinking and cooking needs and so far I love it!  I am still too tired to make my life-saving green smoothies every single day but at least I’m whipping them up more often than I did before.  I’m also adding a healthy dose of chia seeds, ground flax, coconut oil and brazil nuts to my daily diet along with my Red Raspberry Leaf tea.  I drank the tea during the third trimester of my last pregnancy and while I have no idea if it made labor shorter/more efficient (although the labor did progress beautifully), I can definitely speak to its ability to dramatically reduce postpartum bleeding.  It’s also supposed to help with milk supply and is an overall good tonic for pregnancy in general.  Plus, it helps keeps me hydrated since I absolutely hate drinking plain water.  I bought the herb in bulk and brew it in big batches every couple of days just like I did with green tea before the pregnancy.  I’ll keep on making small but manageable changes as time goes on but I’ve discovered that if I try to do too much, too fast then I end up abandoning all of it.

As far as my other goals, apparently meditating for 20 minutes a day is just too much for me to handle.  I tried to change the goal to just 5 minutes but that didn’t work either.  Reading a book?  No.  Practicing piano?  Nope.  Writing poetry again?  Not exactly.  And the sad part is that these are things are really love.  I want to meditate and read and play piano and write.  I’ll have to re-evaluate things and perhaps start out making these weekly goals before jumping into daily goals.  Right now I feel like it’s a huge accomplishment if I actually manage to keep my sanity until the end of the day… which is not exactly happening either.  Ugh.  Baby steps.

But here are some pleasant pictures of our picnic with the peacocks to make everything seem happy and jovial.  This is one of Colin’s favorite activities and mine too.  When life gets stressful, go see some birds!

Well the new year is off to a far more chipper start than the end of 2016 and I’m thankful for that.  I’ve found my footing after a severe rough patch and hopefully things stay manageable!

The weather has warmed up considerably again and as long as it’s not hot (think 70’s), I’m happy.  A few cold days here and there are good too but after a number of cold days in a row, it’s always nice to have a brief break!

Nathan has adjusted very well to being back in school after the long break. We all do well when we have a schedule and this is especially true for Nathan.  William has had a bit of a harder time getting back into the swing of things and has been sad when I drop him off at school.  He says he just wants to stay home and snuggle with mommy, which is so sweet and just makes me want to keep him home with me sometimes J  But he always ends up having a good day when I pick him up so all is well in the end.  And Colin jumped right back into school with glee.  He loves it 🙂

Lately I’ve been feeling like an elephant seal.  I don’t know if you’ve ever seen those things move around but it ain’t pretty.  The baby had a massive growth spurt over the holidays and at my 30-week appointment last Monday, I was measuring 32 weeks.  Normally I’d be pretty freaked out over this and the prospect of birthing a big baby, but I seem to remember this with my last pregnancies.  The babies would have huge growth spurts and then things would settle down a bit.  The doctor assures me that my history of having babies 7-8lbs is a far better indicator of the size of the baby than what I’m actually measuring.  Let’s hope that’s the case!

Since I’ve always delivered 10-14 days early, my dad is arriving 2.5 weeks before my due date to stay with us for a couple of weeks so he can take the boys when I actually go into labor.  After he leaves, I have my mom coming out for a week just in case the baby is late and/or to help out with things right after the birth.  I am so thankful they are able to do this for me and it eases my mind greatly knowing I’ll have some extra help around that time!  David’s parents have always done this for us in the past and my water has always broken on the same day they arrived so the timing could never have been more perfect 🙂  I am hoping that we have a similar situation this time around and the baby doesn’t decide to stay put and come way later than in the past, but you never know!  We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it I suppose!  I am just hoping my water doesn’t break while I’m out somewhere with a massive gush.  At least with William and Colin, I was home when my water broke (although with William it really did break with a massive gush like a bucket and I screamed with horror/surprise).  I keep desperately praying that I’ll go into labor in the evening when David is already home and the boys have been picked up for the day.  That way Dave and I can just calmly drive to the hospital without him having to scramble home from work in traffic and then leave my dad to pick up all three boys from school.  Ah!  Must stop worrying about these things and just let events unfold as they will.  Pre-labor jitters I suppose!

Ok – here’s a long overdue belly shot.  As I said – elephant seal.  And I still have 2 months to go.

Welcome 2017!

I usually end my year by setting intentions for the next year and then kind of sit around and hope they will come true.  This year I decided to get a bit more specific and set five goals that I want to work towards in the new year with steps for how I am going to reach them.  I also began a habit tracker to start a handful of good habits I would like to adopt in in order to make some changes to my lifestyle.  We’ll see how it goes but I like the idea of being a bit more proactive than I have in years past!

Christmas is over… thank goodness.  It was not a good Christmas for me and I couldn’t wait to get rid of the tree and move on from the holidays.  For New Year’s Eve we went on a long hike and then had a party with just the five of us that night.  Nathan actually made it 30 minutes past midnight, William to about 11pm, and Colin to about 9pm.  Not bad!  Overall it was fun and I always look forward to New Year’s Eve and Day J

I start my 30^th week of pregnancy this week so the official countdown has begun!  I have always delivered my babies 2 weeks early so I am really keeping my fingers crossed this one happens the same way.  That way, I really only have 8 weeks to go!  It’s time to start getting the baby’s room together a bit more.  I have some artwork that I got off Etsy to hang (little ants with balloons and playing cricket), and we set the dresser up yesterday.  Very exciting!  The baby will sleep in a pack-n-play in our room for the first six months or so like all the others did.  That gives us a bit more time to keep Colin sleeping in his crib before we switch him to a toddler bed.  He seems in no rush to escape and come down stairs in the middle of the night so as long as it’s working, we’ll keep things as they are for as long as we can!  But other than that I am really looking forward to this pregnancy being over.  I am uncomfortable, exhausted, and have generally really struggled this time around.  I feel fairly certain that this will be our last baby.  Mama isn’t going to put herself through another pregnancy again!

So that about catches you up!  I hope you all have joyous New Year’s Day and happy birthday to my beautiful sister!