Watch out for the Crazy Lady!

Oh, my. These hormones! I don't struggle with morning sickness or varicose veins but my hormones run amok during pregnancy. With O, I was so ready to deliver so that I could be a nice person again. : )

The blessing of pregnancy #4 is that I've come to the the place where I can (generally) recognize that the bizarre and ridiculous thoughts and urges I'm having are not at all rational, acceptable and must be fought. This is a huge change from the pregnancy with A where I decided that a certain piece of furniture was in the way and it would make PERFECT sense to just throw it out the window. ha!

Hormones must be the culprit of last night's reaction to waking up and finding the kids in our room . . . . I went to bed early (for us) and fell asleep around nine forty five and had already been awakened twice by this and that became indignant, angry and despair filled at waking the third time (in an hour and a half!). "What are you doing in here!?" I was wailing, pleading, crying and begging, "don't you know it is so rude to wake people up? It is so, so rude. Why? Why? Why won't you let me sleep?" (I was paranoid, too, apparently--my children were obviously on a mission to keep me up. : ) ). Yes. Not my best moment. Nor is it a great example of keeping hormones in check. Fortunately, T arrived on the scene and got everyone back in their proper places and I dove back under the covers.

This morning it all seems like a strange dream. And speaking of reality seeming like a strange dream. The other night, I was up late cleaning and T had gone to bed. As I straightened the drapes, I saw a HUGE spider in the folds of our curtains. She was kind of sketchy, so I googled "brown recluse" and saw a lot of nasty flesh wounds as well as a lot of spiders that looked just like the one in our drapes.

I am generally medium-tough on such matters, but this girl was weirding me out and I needed to know if she was what I thought she was, so I headed upstairs where Tuan had JUST fallen asleep. I know that is the worst time to wake someone (ahem) and gingerly approached him. Graciously, he came downstairs carrying a wife beater (?) and looked at the spider and the images of spiders and necrotizing wounds. It was not a brown recluse (!), but now we had to dispose of this beast and T refused to employ the dustpan relocation method. So, we hauled the vacuum out, sucked her up and he went back to bed.

The next morning, T wanted to know if that really happened. All he could remember was bringing the wife beater downstairs (we still don't know why), looking at spiders on the computer and doing something with the vacuum. We both thought that the wife beater thing was hilarious.

You know how people tell pointless stories and at the end you're all like, "what? why did they share this?" Yeah. I know.

Keeping it Random

1. I ordered a new HEPA filter for our vacuum. It was long overdue as I just didn't want to spend the money (20.00 at Walmart!). Then, I found it on Amazon for 7.00! I was so excited to put it on and vacuum. I LOVE to vacuum, BTW. I vacuum the car, the mats, the rugs, the carpet, the vinyl, the baseboards, the fans. We own three vacuums (Eureka, hard floor and Shop Vac) and I really want one more for the stairs.

2. My phlegmatic child showed his personalities failing this morning and DUG his heels in and stubbornly fought against a simple task. All he had to do was draw a picture from the story we'd read and he fought and fought and fought. Bear in mind he had just completed two far more challenging worksheets!

3. If you are thinking about pre-schooling at home, I cannot recommend Rod and Staff's pre-school/kindergarten books enough. It has been amazing to watch Aubrey's progress in numbers, hand/eye coordination, motor skills, etc . . . I was not sure about them at first, because they are not frilly or colorful or "Fun" looking, but she loves them and can do most things independently.

4. I learned about them from Preschoolers and Peace--one of my favorite blogs, particularly the archives. You should check them out!

5. The other day I was discouraged by some hard things I'd read. Then, in church our choir sang an excerpt from Handel's Messiah,

Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows! He was wounded
For our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the
Chastisement of our peace was upon Him. (Isaiah 53:4-5)

I may be interpreting this wrong, but how encouraging that Jesus has borne our sorrows. He sympathizes with us and bears our burdens because we cannot.

6. I keep hearing people say that "God doesn't give us more than we can handle." That is not in the Bible. There is a verse regarding temptation that says something like that, but God doesn't promise us that He won't give us more than we can handle. He DOES promise to be with us, he promises that when we pass through the waters HE will be with us, that the flames will not consume us. He tells us not to fear because he has called us by name and we are his! (Isaiah 43) Bible promises are far better than worldly promises.

7. Tuan is building a gazebo with a reciprocal roof. It is going to have a firepit in the middle. He is a man with a plan, for sure! The wood (Black Locust) came from our family's land and Tuan was out until midnight last night driving posts. Didn't I say we thrive on projects?

8. I'm painting shelves today and just itching to go through all the kids clothes, but lately I'm either super energized or incredibly exhausted. This week has been more of an exhausted kind of week. : )

9. As a mom, I seem to have days where everything goes great and I feel a bit superwomanish or days where it takes four hours to do school and the floor never gets swept. I call those the "just keep swimming" days, where I just take the next step and the next and the next and probably anticipate rest time more than I should. : )

10. The baby kept jumping at the thunder the other night. So fun!

Because I can't Focus on any one thing . . .

1. We took the kids to T's alma mater to watch a performance of Beauty and the Beast. T's dad played trombone with the orchestra--they did a great job. The school sold light up roses and all these little girls had them. Well, the row ahead of us had two little girls who were VERY engaged in the music and were waving those roses all over the place. Two rows ahead was a lady with an elaborate hairdo that might be described as the "geisha donut". The light-up rose danced to the music and got closer and closer to the hair. "I have a feeling something epic is about to happen," said T as we watched the rose. It didn't and we were SO disappointed.

2. We are 20 weeks and two days. I cannot get enough Chik-fil-A. It is SO good.

3. Camp is coming! It's time to pray and prepare and pray!

4. Mr. O has begun the whole drop to the ground while I'm holding his hand and trying to get him to walk. I initially thought it was a game and now know it is willful disobedience. We had this awful moment at the Children's museum where I was carrying Miss A (for some reason), and looking for J while O just dropped and dangled from my hand looking for all the world like his arm was going to pop out of socket--all the while trying to get on the elevator. It was not one of our greatest moments.

5. Miss A unloaded the dishwasher tonight. It was nice to find the dishwasher empty and ready to load. However, she put dishes in the strangest places!

6. I'm recovering a desk chair for J's room and T has set up a woodshop in the carport next door and is working on all sorts of projects. We both THRIVE on projects.

7. On the other hand, we don't thrive on being "busy". Our idea of too busy is probably laughable to some. I mentioned doing scouts and T said, "they meet once a week" and we were both like, "oh, nevermind, that!" Actually I think Cub Scouts are monthly, so that might be in the cards. We are also thinking about letting J play soccer this fall in our local league. It will be fun for him and good for us to get into the community. Of course it will be a "commitment." bleh.

8. I have beach fever in the worst way. A shrimp po-boy at Market Cafe followed by an afternoon at the beach and evening on the bay sounds DIVINE.

9. Braxton Hicks!

10. When we were eating lunch at Animal Kingdom there were all these native birds hanging around our table and our kids LOVED it. Suddenly, this grumpy woman wearing Mickey Ears walks up and starts chasing them away muttering dark things under her breath. I got bemusedly frustrated and REALLY wanted so badly to throw a rib at her. (we were eating BBQ) It would have made a great vacation memory. "Remember when mom threw the rib bone at the grumpy lady who chased the birds and got us banned from Disney World?!"

11. Disney is interesting because it CAN be a happy place. But what I've observed is that Disney doesn't make everything better, it just magnifies whatever your current personality or issues are. So, if you and your husband have communication issues, then you are REALLY going to have a difficult time at Disney. If your children get in the way of "your fun," then Disney is not for you. On the other hand, if you have a great relationship and all enjoy each other, Disney is WONDERFUL!