Update.

T minus 6 days until Husband's vasectomy.

36 Weeks.

I'm 36 weeks pregnant. My body is pretty much begging for mercy at this point. Up until about a week ago, I was telling people that I needed every day I could possibly get before Penelope was born because I didn't feel ready to deal, and that I hoped she didn't arrive early. 

But then. 

All of the sudden.
 
I went from pretty miserable to BEYOND UNCOMFORTABLE and I'm ready for her to get out. My pregnancy buddy (who was also pregnant with her third child) had her son last week, three weeks early, and now I am insanely jealous that she gets to hold her baby instead of feeling his bones grind against hers every time she bends over to pick something up. This probably won't happen to me, early delivery. I'll likely carry this baby every single one of the 280 days that 40 weeks of pregnancy entails, as my skin continues to stretch into oblivion.

But you know ... there's Asher, my sweet, sweet boy, who is soon to be ousted from his position as baby of the family to forgotten middle child. He's only 20 months old, but he knows something is UP. I keep finding him looking at a book we have in our house called "Baby On The Way."

And he keeps doing this:

 

 And looking at me like this:

And it makes me feel a whole bunch of things. First of all, no one is allowed to make him the "forgotten middle child." I will make sure of it, and probably cause a lot of damage in the process. Also, I'm worried he is about to go from being my sweet, sweet boy to some sort of hellion I don't know what to do with. Becoming the middle child might ruin him, and that would be devastating.

Thirdly, for Asher's sake, I hope his sister doesn't arrive for exactly 27 more days. June 14. And maybe a little bit for my sake too, because today I tried my hardest to soak up all of the sweetness I could from my sons and I felt like I couldn't get enough of them. I wanted to stop time. Which is a feeling very unfamiliar to me. I never feel like that. Ever. My days are typically so long that sometimes it feels like some kind of torture, and when people tell me to "enjoy every moment" I want to say "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?! MY MOMENTS DRAG ON FOR ETERNITY!"  

But not today.

Today, even with the fits and the crying and the frustration that comes with parenting a 4-year-old and a toddler, I really soaked them in. I have two wonderful kids. None of us are perfect, but I don't say enough how happy I am to be their mother. I don't know what kind of shit is about to hit the fan in my house, but right now -- despite the fact that I can't take a full breath or sleep more than 2 hours in a row at night without getting a leg cramp or having to get up and pee -- everything is good.

Let's keep it that way, family. 27 more days, give or take. Let's finish strong.
  

Two Cowboys.

First World Embarrassment.

My due date is a month from today. 

I woke up this morning and upon realizing the date, my heart started racing and I jumped out of bed and started doing things. As I have mentioned, if I don't finish my to-do list before Pepper arrives, the Earth is going to open up and swallow us all. ALL OF US WILL GO INTO A BLACK HOLE. Why doesn't anyone but me realize this?!?! That is the urgency that I feel when I think about things like organizing the laundry room cabinets.

Yesterday's project was cleaning up the carseat, which has so far carried two of our children safely. I took it all apart and wiped it down, washed the covers, put it all back together and then put a new cover on top of the old one and some fluffy strap covers and -- WHEW! -- I am one step farther from being swallowed up whole. 

Ready to go!

People, nesting is a real force beyond my control. Want to know what else is? First World Problems combined with pregnancy brain, which according to my calculations equals First World Embarrassment.

This morning I decided to go to Starbucks before dropping the kids off at preschool. This is Asher's last day of school (tomorrow is Maverick's last day), and that means these next sweet hours of me alone in my house with the Avett Brothers playing on Pandora will be my last sweet hours alone for a very, VERY long time. Nothing could make me enjoy it more than a big cup of overpriced coffee. We may have a tight budget, but OH -- I make room for overpriced coffee. 

So I put a Yo Gabba Gabba DVD in the player and off we went. I used to judge parents who allowed their children to watch too much TV and I especially judged the ones who had a TV in their car. I thought, "Can those people really not handle a 20 minute drive without TV?" Well, the answer is no. No, we cannot. Because those 20 minutes of silent driving without having to answer questions like, "Mommy, do hogs eat bugs?" is just so, so SWEET. And if I am slightly damaging my children's brains, it's counterbalanced by the fact that my sanity is slightly improved during that drive.

I mean ... look at this.

Watching Yo Gabba Gabba!

Anyway, I pulled up to the drive-thru window and handed the lady my money and this is when the First World Embarrassment occurred. She turned away to get my drink and I really don't know what happened except that I literally am not thinking straight ... I started singing (loudly) along with the Yo Gabba Gabba DVD, right there at the window, for all of Starbucks to enjoy.

"Don't! Don't! Don't bite your friends!"
"Don't! Don't! Don't bite your friends!"
"Bite, bite, bite! No, no, no!"
"Chomp chomp chomp! Yes, yes, yes!"

Around the last stanza I realized what I was doing and immediately stopped, but the damage had already been done. So I overcompensated for my First World Embarrassment by shutting the DVD player off and making my children listen to Top 40 music instead, and therefore we returned to Maverick asking a stream of questions like "Mommy, the lady on the song said she doesn't care. Why doesn't she care?"

"Well ... this is a band called Icona Pop. And she is just being silly, she didn't really crash anyone's car or throw their stuff down the stairs ..." 

And, that's a lie. 

Damnit. 

  

Mother's Day Eve.

This morning Maverick came up to me and asked me to lean down so he could whisper something in my ear.

When I leaned over, he said: "Tomorrow me and Daddy are going to the store to get you a whole bunch of nothing!"

Aww. How sweet.

First World Problems.

I'm thinking of starting a new series on my blog called "First World Problems."  

Here is my first First World Problem: my mother-in-law bought me a Groupon for three hours of house cleaning a few months ago. It was right around the time that I gave up completely on cleaning my bathrooms, so it was excellent timing. 

I have been trying to schedule an appointment with these people and finally took their "first available" opening. Because I am pregnant and everything is a big effing deal I stressed for an entire day over whether or not I should stay in the house with Asher while she cleaned, or if we should leave. Should I take what little valuable jewelry I own with me? Should I hide it? Am I being crazy? I should wash our bath rugs. Right now.  

Things of that nature.

To make a long and boring story short, the girl got in a car wreck on her way to my house and had to reschedule for today. So for the second time in less than a week, I went through the house and cleared the floor of toys, hid our important paperwork and pulled all of the towels out of the bathrooms. I crammed a few items in my purse that have value. I woke Asher up from his nap early and left the house for several hours in the pouring rain so we wouldn't be in the girl's way while she cleaned.

I left a key for her.

It was a car key.

Her phone was dead so she couldn't call, and when I got home with two cranky kids I found a note with the CAR KEY I left and an apology to me that she couldn't open my door.

My second First World problem is that I can't back out of my driveway because I seem to have lost my ability to drive. I fully expect to get pulled over for suspected drunk driving at some point soon. Here is a conversation I had with Maverick this morning when we were leaving for school:

Maverick: "We have to be nice to the plants. It's our job to take care of them."

Me: "Mmm hmm."

Maverick: "So is petting them with your car nice? Because you just ran through our grass and petted that bush with the van." 

My third First World Problem is that Husband and I swapped phones and I really don't know how to explain what has happened ... except to say that every single picture I ever took with my old iPhone is now downloaded to our computer, including pictures like this.

 
 And this.

 
 And this one here.

You see ... I text pictures to my girlfriends sometimes, either for entertainment's sake, or to make a point, or because I need a helpful opinion -- like this series of photos below. I asked my friend who is a scarf guru to help me tie a scarf correctly, and that explains why I have all of these pictures. Not that it's any less embarrassing once you know the explanation.
 

I think this last one was me showing another mom what some sunglasses and a stern look can do. It frightens children, that's what. I'm just grateful that Husband didn't ask for an explanation for anything that he saw. I figure he either didn't want to know, or just didn't care. But seriously ... if I found something like this on his phone, I'd have some questions.

 

 
  

Maverick The Magnificent.

This boy is going to be famous some day. I just know it.