Be

Did allergy season come early this year? I am in a fog.

And today I realized why: I'm taking the SLEEPY allergy medicine.

I am such a dork.

Laughing... so between my drugs and the pregnancy tiredness, I'm never quite sure when "the wall" will be hit, but when it does, I'm a puddle.

I don't want to be a puddle.

I want to be a mighty wave, whisking laundry effortlessly and donning really cute jewelry in my pregnancy outfits. I want to call people back and fix all their problems with encouraging words or witty sayings. I want to make people dinners and leave it on their doorstep after they've had a hard day.

But this appears the time of life to grow a baby.

Which means being forgetful. Chubby. Mostly tired. A bit crabby. And keeping life simple.

Maybe tomorrow I'll take the right meds. And maybe I won't take two naps. Maybe just one.

But today, I'll just be.

Morgan the Vegetarian

Morgan and I were sitting at a stop light yesterday next to a mack truck filled with cows. 

Emily: "Look at those cows, Morgan!"

Morgan: "Cows give us milk!"

Emily: (Wondering if she knows what else cows give...) "Do we eat cows?"

Morgan: "Noooooo. We only drink milk, Mom." (Said in embarassed-to-be-seen-with-Mom tone.)

Emily: "What animals DO we eat?"

Morgan: "We don't eat animals, Mom. Except for grownups. They eat crabs. That is so weird."

Emily: "What about chickens? Do we eat chickens?"

Morgan: "Yes, but not the cockle-doodle-do kind. We just eat chicken. We eat it for dinner and then we go to bed and then the next day we eat it for dinner again." 

(The conversation had clearly veered from vegetarianism to repetitive chicken-eating.)

I smiled and thought to myself: I gave the "V" talk. Dan can give the animals-we-love-and-eat talk.

Confessions of a Selfish Mother

Today I feel: like being selfish.

This is a great attribute to have as a stay-at-home mother. *wink*

Yesterday was really weird. I was so tired. And it didn't feel like a "pregnancy" tired. So all day when I took naps and popped my iron and protein supplements, nothing was giving me that boost like it normally does.

I drank caffeine and very little happened.

I slept between doing laundry and popping videos in the DVD player for Morgan. She watched a fair bit of TV. Like 6 hours. *gulp*

Then I remembered that this is that wacky time of year: Allergy Season.

Suddenly everything made sense: the body aches, the weird head feeling and the tiredness.

I called my doc who said it was okay to take Benadryl. I anticipated the sleepyness it promised on the box. But apparently it had the opposite effect on me.

Wide awake at 8pm. Little fetus kicking up a storm. (Smile.) 

This morning Morgan got the memo that my body is a little on the worn side because her energy level is twice the normal amount. Or maybe is just seems that way. 

I just want to be alone. With quietness.

I want to be selfish. 

Home Edjumication

This year I decided to do some basic home education with Morgan to prepare her for kindy-garten. Today I had a hard time not laughing at her efforts. 

Sounding out the word "two":

Emily: "Morgan, what sound does the letter 't' make?"

Morgan: "m-m-m-m"

Emily: "No, Sweetie, that's 'm'. What does 't' sound like?"

Morgan: "hu-hu-hu"

Emily: "C'mon, honey, you know this one..."

And then Morgan started making this weird combination of sounds that I can only liken to a steam engine leaving a station. Something like this: "Pshttsshht." 

Her look was completely serious. I stifled laughter. 

Emily: "No, Morgan. 'T' makes a 't-t-t' sound."

Care to guess what the "w" sounded like?

_____________________

We're also learning how to recite and spell her home address. After having her trace the numbers and letter of our street address, I had her write them freehand on her own paper. This is the dialogue that followed:

Morgan: "Mom, there's tape in the way of this 'c' so I'm just going to make it a small 'c' and not a big 'c'."

Emily: (Trying to keep it fun for a first try...) "Okay, sweetie."

Morgan: "And I'm not going to do small letters. I don't want to. I only want to do big letters."

Emily: "Follow the example I gave you, Sweetie."

Morgan: "I just want to do what I want to do," she said confidently as she drew her letters with little swirls and curly-ques inside them. Very girly. And a bit unreadable.

And then, with lightning speed, I found that she had taken her kiddie scissors and cut up the address into pieces and taped them on the wall. Proudly.

And that's when this momma decided it was time to call it a morning. :)

Teachers deserve SO much praise.

New School Year Prayer

Dear God,

As I think about the upcoming weeks, I'm a bit overwhelmed. 

I'm coming to you about it because I don't want to lose you in the routine.

There are carpools to arrange, new classes to join and lunches to make.

And somewhere in between doctor visits and bringing in the class snacks I need to keep my car filled with gas, keep my family fed and keep at least some clean clothes in their drawers.

It doesn't feel like there is a lot of room for error. Or contemplation. 

Or You.

Please give me the strength to be still before you and hear Your voice each day. 

Please give me the courage to let my laundry suffer a  little neglect so I can anchor myself in You. 

And when the waves of domestic disorderliness threaten the peace of my mind, still them just as you stilled the waters with your disciples. 

Amen.

(The Message- translation of the Bible.)

I Kings 19:9-14, parts:

Then the word of God came to him: "So Elijah, what are you doing here?"
 "I've been working my heart out for the God-of-the-Angel-Armies," said Elijah. "The people of Israel have abandoned your covenant, destroyed the places of worship, and murdered your prophets. I'm the only one left, and now they're trying to kill me."

Then he was told, "Go, stand on the mountain at attention before God. God will pass by."

A hurricane wind ripped through the mountains and shattered the rocks before God, but God wasn't to be found in the wind; after the wind an earthquake, but God wasn't in the earthquake; and after the earthquake fire, but God wasn't in the fire; and after the fire a gentle and quiet whisper.

When Elijah heard the quiet voice, he muffled his face with his great cloak, went to the mouth of the cave, and stood there. A quiet voice asked, "So Elijah, now tell me, what are you doing here?

Dan. Cake. Good.

I ate my words. 

Gladly.

My *awesome* husband raised the bar on birthday cake goodness. Dan found out from my friend Steph about my favorite bakery, Hahn's, which is in Geneva. It's a good 25 minutes from my house to get there. 

So he left work early one day to drive there and pick up the cake he ordered. But they had closed.

So he had his mother and father pick it up on a stealth mission while I was getting my hair cut the other day. (In answer to your question: Yes, they were in town. They did not drive ALL the way from Iowa.)

Here's how he told me:

Dan: "Happy Birthday, Hon! Here's your cake!"

Emily: "Thanks, babe! It looks beautiful."

Dan: "Don't you want to know where I got it?"

Emily: "Dominick's, right?"

Dan: "Nope. Steph said you liked Hahn's."

Emily: "YOU WENT TO HAHN'S??? YOU GOT ME A CAKE FROM HAHN'S?? ALL THE WAY IN GENEVA?" (More freaking out and laughing.) Then he told me the story about how it took a group effort to get it.

It was only 6:30 in the morning and as far as I was concerned, I felt really loved on my birthday. The rest of the day could be boring and I would consider it a good day. 

Thank, Hon. I ate my words gladly.

_________________________

Post Script:

Emily: "You know you raised the bar on my birthday cake expectations. You can't go back."

Dan: "Oh yeah? Well you raised the bar on my Christmas expectations by getting me that brew set last year. What are you going to do THIS year to top that?"

Emily: "Easy. You're getting a baby." *wink*

A Briefing

If you're of the male gender, you may not like this post. You're warned.

Tomorrow I turn 34. There I admitted it. I feel like 24, but I'm a fair bit older than that. 

I celebrated the aging process by buying something I needed direly: granny panties. 

I'm not joking. 

I'm pregnant, large and in charge. 

But now I'm comfortable in my unmentionables. There. You've been briefed. *

It's okay with me that I don this older apparel for now, but hit me if I start using words like "sensible" or "tasty". 

Dan has already warned me that I'm going to apologize to him tomorrow. If you were a fly on the wall of our kitchen tonight, you would hear us joking about his birthday history with me. We've been married 8 years now, so I have no qualms asking specifically for, say, a birthday cake. 

On my birthday. Not after. 

With "Happy Birthday" written on it. Instead of "OOPS".

We joked how each year I add another qualification for my card or cake because of his "creativity". I will gladly eat those words, Dan. And my pastry. 

I suppose that I should go through some sort of grieving process about being mid-30s, but I really don't feel anything. The fertility clinic did a stellar job of telling me how several of my organs are that of a 40 year old woman so I figure I'm ahead there. And being pregnant while hearing another year clunk by doesn't have the same effect as if I were not pregnant. These wacky preggers hormones tell me to think weird things like:

"I'm trying to be more 'green'. How can I help rocks?"

"Angeli.na Joli.e? She's not THAT pretty."

and

"Did Bara.ck (Obama.s) mother see a chicken before she named him?" 

You get my drift. 

So in my book, since I'm not really myself, I'm not really aging. I get a rebate for having pregnancy brain. And granny panties.

* Couldn't. Resist. The pun.