It’s no longer a secret why I’m already looking like I could split in two any day now. Monday they took another peek at the boy and to say he is growing is a bit of an understatement. Yes, he still has a penis. I now have 34 pictures with arrows that say “I’m still a boy!!” My son is very proud of his junk indeed. From what they could tell the placenta is functioning wonderfully- no visible issues like clots. It’s just a lovely efficient nutrient delivery system, as evidenced by his weight. At 31 weeks the average baby weighs 3.31lbs, the key word here being AVERAGE. Never one to be average, or to spawn average children, I expected to be a bit above that- a bit. The measurements startled even me, though. I actually started laughing because it seemed all too ridiculous. My son is already estimated to weight 4 lbs 12 oz or roughly the equivalent of a 34 to 35 weeker (check out average sizes here).

From there it got dicey. He said “How do you feel about Csection?” I said “What chu talkin’ about Willis?” I made it clear that csection is my ultimate last resort and is only to be considered if the baby or myself is at serious risk of dying, SERIOUS RISK being stressed here. I’m not sure what has him singing this tune. Levi’s growth was basically on par with this one and no one ever mentioned the big C to me. This man has been my high risk go to guy for 3 pregnancies now so I’m really wondering what his sudden shift in attitude has been. Is the state of birthing so eroded in Florida that the mere possibility of something less then average happening at a birth that should not happen for at LEAST 4 more weeks (if he makes it as far as his brother) or at least 6 weeks (to make it to term) means that the mother should be bullied into penciling in a csection? Sadly, I know this to be the case for Vbac in this state, but has it become the norm? What about in your state?

Just as I was sitting here with my mouth agape, nary a thought in my head of what to write about, I discovered that I’d been tagged by You Scared Me. Can I get an AMEN! for the properly timed Meme? The only problem is the meme is 6 things you don’t know about me. SIX THINGS! I’ve been blogging since ‘04 and have been more of an open book then I’d ever imagined so this one really requires me to dig deep or expound upon late breaking developments like number 6

6) I’m old. No really. Dinosaur dirt and I are like this XXXXX. Yesterday VH1 said something about checking out Stone Temple Pilots on VH1 classics. *pukes* When did STP become vintage VH1? I guess I can now officially walk around saying “I’m too old for this shit” all.the.time.

5) I’ve heavily contemplated the idea of obliterating this blog. It’s been a wonderful way to open myself up to freelancing opportunities, a great way to express myself and most importantly it’s been fantastic having this chronicle of my children’s lives to easily refer too but at the same time it’s opened me up to hate and I wonder if it overexposes my children. For now it’ll stay open because I’m pretty sure without this outlet I’d go insane.

4) I still haven’t picked a bedroom color. I may have to throw away all my paint chips and go to another store. Why is my bedroom so frickin hard to paint? WHY??

3) I think outtie belly buttons are gross- INCLUDING MINE! *shudders* I have no idea why, I think it must stem from some early 80’s Cabbage Patch Kids trauma

2) I’m addicted to “How Clean is Your House” and “NCIS” *hides faces in shame*

1) I hate going out to eat. I used to love it but now I spend so much time worrying about cross contamination with gluten and all that BS that it pretty much has sucked the joy out of things. I hate it more now that I’m pregnant because if I do accidentally eat gluten it not only makes me sick, but it affects the baby.

My computer, oh yes, it’s royally screwed. I have no idea how it ended up booting and allowing me online but considering the number of error and weird system messages, I’m fairly confident that when I try and turn this thing on tomorrow morning, it won’t work. So take a deep breath, any extended period of silence from me most likely is computer related and NOT baby related.

Sunday I hit 31 weeks and my main goal is to NOT wind up in the hospital… every pregnancy 31 weeks has been the magic “things go to crap” number where I usually get my 1st inpatient stay. I am DETERMINED not to repeat the pattern so like I said, if I’m not posting it’s because the computer went Kablooey- NOT because my girl parts did.

Oh, and if the blog disappears for a few days at some point, it’s because I need to renew my hosting and right now that has to wait. My dryer is broken, my sink is leaking and this whole computer thing is going down- hosting can’t be a priority. Thanks for hanging tight.

EDITED TO ADD*** Melanie queen of Finding Yourself design gifted me.. I am just speechless. The lights will stay on here at Finding Yourself for another month. After that it’ll be on Uncle Sam and the “tax rebate”

1) Lust

I’m not talking about panting over your hot neighbor who’s out doing yard work. No Honey, in this state you lust for baked goods, potato chips, Chinese food and pretty much anything that someone else is eating. The mere mention of a BLT can send you into a foamy mouth frenzy of bacon lust.

2) Gluttony

This comes hand in hand with lust. You see one cookie won’t do it. Hell, TWO cookies won’t do it. Suddenly you find yourself elbow deep in a bag of Snickers fun sizes and all that’s left is wrappers. It’s a special kind of gluttony, one we can justify by saying “the baby wanted a Snickers” or in my case Pillsbury fudgy chocolate canned frosting. Hey, I think i was deficient in soy lecithin, yeah that’s it.

3) Greed

We register for our baby presents and then can’t help but pour over the list until the baby shower arrives. YES! Someone bought my swing. KICK BUTT! we just got 3 cases of butt wipes!! And YES, I think it was perfectly reasonable for me to register for a $1300 crib bedding set, I mean the baby NEEDS that to sleep!!

4) Sloth

Do I really need to elaborate on this one? I mean, once we can no longer see our toes, we also can no longer see how dirty the floor is. *yawn* I think I’ll go take a nap

5) Wrath

Pregnancy is like 9 months of the most wild PMS you’ve ever had; you are nothing but one big ball of inordinate and uncontrolled feelings of hatred and anger. I’ve been known to yell at the toilet for flushing too loudly and hurl things at The Hubster who made the mistake of bringing home vanilla ice cream.

6) Envy

You will feel this towards every single woman who just had her baby and particularly those who popped out a peanut and walked out of the hospital wearing their prepregnancy clothes- bitches.

7) Pride

You may experience this one in a variety of ways- Shoving your ultrasound pictures under every strangers nose, flashing around pictures of your slick new nursery, or flaunting your belly across the internet

Basically this all just confirms the fact that I’m going to hell. I’ll save you a seat

and if you have a minute, go check this out

a wall color for my bedroom

ya know, before i pop

I’m sticking out way more in the front then last time.

someone turned 6

now I just need to prod her into a photo shoot. Maybe I’ll get Levi to talk to her about the pros of posing

My days of puppy kicking and duckling stomping have finally caught up to me. I should have known that such heinous acts would result in bad Karma. Over the last 24 hours I have found a poisonous female black window spider in my son’s crib, suffered from a sudden 10pm flea plague, and ended up with an irreparable flat tire. I’m frustrated and angry and really tired (after having bathed 2 of the 3 dogs at 1045pm) and right about now a good puppy kicking, duckling stomping, spitting on rainbows, and childhood dream crushing session might do me some good. Oh I have a better idea, let’s try to pick out paint for the bedroom because Ive only been trying to do that for two years and if there was any way to make my day sunnier it would be by me pulling every last strand of hair out of my head.

People, if this baby comes when Levi did then I only have 6 weeks to work a miracle in my master bedroom. By miracle I mean moving everything out, painting, laying flooring, installing baseboards, moving everything back in and setting up my bedside baby station. Sometimes I feel like waving the white flag and crying into a bag of potato chips.

Yesterday we played host to some friends from out of town. They came with their 3 kiddles (including their super adorable teeny weeny 2 week old who I got to sniff and snuggle) and we all had brunch together. As K and I lingered at the table, sucking up what I am sure is an embarrassing amount of Ambrosia Levi toddled back to the table. Up into my lap he crawled and then he turned his big round eyes to me, flashed a dazzling smile, gestured to the table and asked “Bacon?”

“Did he just say bacon?”

“Uh, yes. Yes he did” (laughing)

What could I do? I handed over the last two pieces and watched him toddle off chomping on bacon. If there was ever any doubt as to his parentage, that pretty much cleared it up. Seconds later my older two came dashing into the room begging for bacon.

“Sorry Levi got the last of it”

“NOOOOO FAIIIIIIIIIIR” they wailed in unison.

What little funny things have your kids done that just screamed “YOU ARE OF MY FLESH”

We haven’t even been back from spring break for a full week and already bad news home from the school. Apparently the LICE plague has struck *dun dun dun* Run cover your head in mayo and shower caps!!! This could not have hit at a worse time. I’m already paranoid about getting weird spots in my house clean-the fridge seal and the crevices of my washer- but now I can sit and pick my kids over for hours obsessed with sleuthing out any nits hiding on their scalps. And that doesn’t even cover the time I will spend clawing at my own head, squinting in the mirror and begging The Hubster to REALLY look close.

I hated getting lice as a kid. It always made me feel dirty and that dang soap burned like holy hell fires as it sat on my scalp. I would sit there and imagine the lice trying to flee from the toxic rolling mushroom cloud and swear I could feel the outer layers of my brain melting. My mom would bag everything and vacuum every surface in sight. I would sit backwards on a chair and stare at our porch floor what what felt like eons as she patiently combed through every thick strand of my hair ripping the eggs from my hair shaft.

The uproar caused by the LICE plague is something I hope to avoid entirely. I feel a little better knowing that we don’t have carpet for them to live in and that we have mattress condoms on all our beds but someone may still have to come over and stop me from steam vaccing my kids heads if we catch it. Of course I could always try something like this.

This gluten free cake recipe with a box of raspberry jello tossed in and vanilla cream cheese frosting.

and for you gluten free cookie covetters

and you can find this delicious recipe HERE.