Time's a wastin'

I don't even know what to write about today but I realize that now that I'm back to work and don't have many hours of the day to sit and surf the web I need to make time for my blog.  I am gone for about 10+ hours a day, haven't been home until after 10:30 most nights so far and I just need to figure out how to run my life with the 3 beautiful children that I have and work at the same time.  Oh, did I mention that I would also like to take a shower every few days at least?  I figured that since I already had 2 kids I would just float right into life with 3.  Well, I lied to myself.  It's not as easy as I led myself to believe it would be.  I have really good kids but there is just so much that needs to be done.  So this is what I have decided.

#1 Shower whenever you are able.  There may not be another chance for a while.

#2 Let the kids that are able pick out their own clothes.  It saves me a few minutes to get something else done and they get to learn how to make decisions that they have to live with for the rest of the day.  Who cares if the red plaid is matched with the greens stripes.  They are going to daycare, nobody cares what they are wearing.

#3 Sometimes it really is easier to eat fast food than bring a lunch.  Don't sweat it when there isn't any leftovers to take.  You didn't fail.

#4 As long as your children are fed and kept warm they are fine.  Sometimes reading a story will get bumped for taking a shower.  Don't worry about it.  There is more time for stories later,  also there is more time to shower later (well maybe not but you can skip this occasionally)

#5 Long hair is great, there is little you have to do to get ready and when you don't have time to spend on it you can throw it into a ponytail and go.  Same goes for your children, long hair just needs to be combed and washed regularly.

#6 Let your husband do the dishes, laundry, vacuuming.  Even if you don't like how he does it at least it got done.

#7 Macaroni and cheese and hot dogs is perfectly acceptable for dinner.  And the children love it.

OK, those are my new rules to live by.  I'm going to remember that life keeps going regardless of what you have going on.

Candice's wedding is fast approaching.  Two weeks from Friday is the Bachelorette party of the century!  Pure Romance party to start the evening with good food and drinks.  Then on to Brit's Pub to partake of the Royal Wedding Reception.  Should be an absolute blast.  It will be EPIC!

Three weeks from this Friday is the wedding in Arizona at the Grand Canyon. Our flight leaves on Wednesday and we return on Sunday.  This is FIVE days of only adults.  I'm not sure how I'm going to handle being away from my children for that long as I haven't ever been separated for that long.  Oh, and I'm nursing Alex so I get to pump all week to keep up the supply.  I do have quite the pile of frozen milk in the freezer for while we are gone though. 

I'm not sure those of you who don't have kids realize how much stuff I have to pack for these 5 days with Grandma.  There's the normal stuff like clothes, underwear and that sort.  Then there is blankets, stroller, carrier, extra shoes, pillows, formula, milk, bottles, diapers, and more that I can't even think of.  I'm going to do my best to drop all of this off the day before we leave and then just drop off the stuff that we can't live without for a night, like pillows and blankets.  What a trip we are taking!

I plan to drop the girls off at daycare that morning and then finish packing for myself.  I don't even remember when my flight leaves so I don't know how early this morning is going to be!  Oh, well it will be a great vacation and probably the last one for quite a while.  Once I get home from this I have nothing on the books for months.  I plan to take 3 days off to get my tubes tied in June and then I have nothing besides birthday parties from here to the end of time. 

So I'm hoping to survive the next 3 weeks!  Wish me luck!!!

Don't let life get you down!

Well, I'm still dealing with my heart acting up.  I'm not sure what it is.  My OB doc says it's not damaging my heart and the baby is fine.  Well I don't feel fine!  I feel like I've just run a marathon without getting off my couch!  It's exhausting and I'm ready to be done with this pregnancy to see if this stuff continues on it's own or not.  I see the cardiologist tomorrow morning and I'm hoping that Regions gets the report from my holter monitor back to her in time for my appointment.  I'm going to ask her to track it down if she doesn't have it on the top of my file when she walks into the room.  So I'm hoping for good news tomorrow.  Good news would be this:
1.  There is no lasting damage done to your heart, it is simply the strain of being pregnant and you will be 100% fine.
2.  In order for your heart to stop being stressed you need to deliver this baby sooner rather than later.  YaY!
3.  In the 6 weeks after you give birth you should have no episodes and will not have to continue to take the heart medication.

Ok, so that probably isn't going to happen, at least #2 probably wont. I'm preparing for another 4 weeks and 2 days of being pregnant.  I want my baby to be healthy but I also don't want to have a heart condition for the rest of my life either!  It's pretty hard to decide which is worse!  Deliver baby early or have a lasting condition that will forever affect how I can live my life?  I'm hoping that the cardiologist will be able to answer some of these questions for me tomorrow.

For those of you that haven't been talking to me recently this is what I feel when I have an episode:
1. My heart beat increases
2. I start to breathe faster
3. My chest gets tight
4. I get light-headed which leads into full on dizziness if I don't get control quick enough
5. My ears stop working.  I can barely hear anything because of the lack of blood pumping through my body and to my brain.
6. I get shaky
7. I get nauseous
8. I am exhausted.

These happen at almost every episode, but not always in that order.  These episodes last anywhere from 15 minutes to 4 hours.  Try taking care of your children when you can't hear what they are saying to you.  Rather difficult my friend.  I've had this with the other two pregnancies as well but the heart medication has always kept it under control with very few break-through episodes happening.  Well this time none of the 3 different heart meds that I've been on this week have done anything to keep it under control. 

So I'm hoping that the cardiologist has the magic answer tomorrow and everything will be perfect!

On a side note: 

I'm turning the big 3-0 on Monday.  What!  No way you say!  You can't possibly be that old.  Well, my friends, that is exactly how old I'm going to be. 

I've started thinking about which face creams I will have to apply daily so that this ancient face doesn't fall right off my bones.  Did you know there are like millions of them out there?  How in the world do you chose?  How do you know what you need to look for?  Alpha-hydroxy, green tea extracts...  blah blah blah....  It's the most confusing decision I think I've had to ponder in a long long time.  Which college to go to was easier than this!  It's crazy and makes my head spin!  So with crazy pregnancy hormones I'm supposed to decide which magical cream is going to keep me from looking like the crypt keeper in five years?  Ha!  Not going to happen my dear friend, not going to happen!  I think I'm going to take my chances and wait until my face actually starts to shrivel up, then I will get serious!

Another side note:

I really want an e-reader!  I keep hoping that my wonderful husband will surprise me with one for my birthday but I don't think that we can afford one right now and while I totally understand it still sucks!  I really want the NOOKcolor but I can't figure out how to come up with $249 for a machine to read books that I can get from the library for free?  Did you know that there are like millions and millions of ebooks out there fore free?  Or even as little as $.99?!!?!?!  Talk about crazy! 



I was talking with my mom the other day about how much the revolution of ebooks is going to save the planet.  Can you imagine how many trees are going to be saved because they don't need paper to make a book?  Think about the manufacturing pollution that will not be needed anymore because instead of a factory making books it will be a group of people sitting in an office, working on their computer, to publish these books.  I'm sure that the editing cost will go up because someone is going to have to sit there and make sure that they are in the right format for publishing electronically and such.  However there will be a loss of job in those factories for the people who are standing there working the machines that create books.  The great thing is that even though there will be less books made there will still be books made! Not everyone can afford an e-reader and as such they will still be purchasing regular old books! 

I started out thinking I would never want an electronic form to hold all of my books.  Then I realized that there are so many more books available to me in the virtual world that my library will never be able to accommodate my reading habit to the fullest.  So I've decided that an e-reader would be amazing and that I will gladly take one from any method I can secure one from! 

So for all of you out there that have a ereader that is simply collecting dust on a shelf.  Please email me and I will forward you may address so that you may send me my birthday present.  If you don't happen to have a spare one lying around then you can send donations to me for the purchase of a new one.  Rest assured that it will be well loved and taken care of.  At least you aren't making donations for some bimbo to get a boob jog.  This will continue to educate me and I will be a better person for it.  Not simply a bigger breasted one...

Halloween

I'm sure that there are 100 million posts out there about Halloween and how cute everyones kids were.  I'll just say that my kids are cute all the time, not just on Halloween, LOL.  Abby was a princess fairy and Kate was a lady bug.  Both were adorable but nothing crazy unique with their costumes.  We trick or treated for a while and then I had to come home as my belly hurt so bad I literally couldn't stand up straight.  Jason and Abby did one more street then came home.  It was fun and I''m sure that next year will be even better.

What really annoyed me is that there are so many people (parents really) who don't understand the rules of trick or treating.  #1 rule, if there aren't any lights on the porch lit up then that home isn't giving out candy.  So this means that even though someone is watching TV in their lazy boy if the porch light is out then they don't have any candy to hand out.  Move on to the next house please. 

#2 rule:  Kids, don't stick your hands in the candy bowl unless the homeowner tells you that you can pick out what you would like. 

#3 rule: if the homeowner tells you that you can pick out what you like then you can only take a max of 2 pieces of candy, not a handful.

and lastly #4 rule:  SAY THANK YOU AT EVERY HOUSE!!!  These homeowners have gone out and spent their hard earned money so that you can come up, knock on their door, say "Trick or Treat" and get candy for FREE!  The least you can do is have good manners and say thank you. 

These are the four main rules for trick or treating.  This is something that people do to be nice to your kids.  Take the time to at least not bother those that choose not to participate and say thank you to those that do. 

One last thing for the parents, don't take your kids out trick or treating when you are drunk.  It is inappropriate and you stink when we walk by you.  Everyone knows you are drunk, wait until the kids get to bed, then get your drink on.

That's enough on that subject.  Thank goodness this is my last pregnancy.  I'm very opinionated with this one.  I can't seem to get off my 'soap box' as it were.  Stupid people drive me crazy and my poor husband has to listen to me rant and rave about each and every one of the topics that set me off.  Just in the last week I know that I have gone off about breast feeding, elective c-sections, Halloween, getting your kids immunized and a few others that I can't even remember.  I wont go into my opinions about these topics.  At least not in this posting!

I think I'll leave you with these thoughts.  What are your opinions that set you off?  Do you think that too many mom's give up to early on breast feeding?  Do you think mom's should be able to schedule the birthday of their baby just to get out of going through labor?  Did you get all the recommended immunizations for your kids?  I don't pretend to be an expert but I have my opinions just like you do!