Making Plans and a Call for Ideas

We are scheduled to induce on Tuesday if the baby does not arrive before then! I am having intermittent contractions that never hit sufficiently regularity or last long enough. (Does that wording make sense? I'm having trouble with the English language today.) I've hit this awful drought of energy. After Bible Study on Wednesday, I came home and crashed on the couch while Tuan got lunch together, then crashed in bed during naptime, then called Tuan around five and begged him to come home and take the kids and promptly crashed in bed again. Got up, ate supper (which he cooked) and then after the kids went to bed went back to sleep. Yesterday was a bit better since we had a doctor's appointment, but we ate lunch out, ate supper out and picked up lunch today. If I went to the grocery store, I'd have something easier to prepare than the roasts and frozen chicken and other items I keep neglecting to pull from the freezer in order to thaw, but I am also extremely lacking in energy. Folding up some clothes or running the vacuum is pretty much the exertion of the hour. Our bathroom really needs cleaning, but I keep hoping I'll just go into labor and it will be "magically" cleaned when we return home.

I had a bit of this when pregnant with A and felt so immensely better after she was born that I felt like I could conquer the world or at the very least rearrange furniture. I was still exhausted, but comparatively speaking, I had the energy of an eighteen year old!

So I'm thinking ahead about the post-baby days and need some meal ideas. Tuan is home every day for lunch and supper and I need some very easy suggestions for things to buy and keep that don't require lots of prep/cleanup and are somewhat nutritious. Frugality is out the window (or can be). I think the money saved from not eating out will easily justify boneless skinless chicken and whatnot. Suggestions? I perhaps have a chance to run to Sams and Kroger on Saturday or Monday.

Movie Time!

I wish I could write that we never let our kids watch videos and that they didn't know what a TV was for . . . but that's not realistic and I'm so glad there are some good things out there that they can watch when need need them to be distracted. Currently, these are our favorites that both kids love:

*Babe
*Milo and Otis
*Toy Story
*Mary Poppins
*Robin Hood
*Berenstain Bears
*Bob the Builder
*Peter Pan
*Thomas the Tank Engine

They like some Veggie Tales and Johnny loves Cars. At Christmas time, Charlie Brown and the Claymation Christmas were huge hits. There are some movies, however, that we have learned they are NOT ready for:

*The Incredibles
*Finding Nemo
*Madeline (the live version)

I'm sure our choices could have a little more "Focus on the Family" in them, but Milo and Otis, Babe and Berenstain Bears are our top picks right now. Does anyone have suggestions for us?

One Eighty

Well, so much for all of that energy! The energy required for all this super-serious nesting is gone and while the desire is present the actual ability to do it all is gone. I could sleep late, get up, eat breakfast (more like elevenses), if I had my druthers and collapse again after lunch with not a smack of hesitation were it not for, you know--responsibility and little people under my care! I actually did that when pregnant with J, but the times they have a changed. I'm still a bit obsessed with the house, but it's a much slower process. This morning's housework required lots of stops and I was frankly relieved when A needed some rocking and J wanted some story telling!

We bought a van last week and are really enjoying it! Lisa, our camp registrar and all-around-wonderful person is married to Neil who really enjoys detailing cars and does a FABULOUS job. We hired him to detail the van and he totally wowed us. I had this weird aversion to driving the van until the previous owner's "cooties" were gone and now we are enjoying driving not only the newest vehicle we've ever owned, but the cleanest! The kids are learning that mama and daddy are a little bit obsessed about keeping the van clean!

We decided to keep the Land Cruiser and sell the Honda, which I already wrote about and the Honda was detailed by me last week. I don't mind detailing and cleaning my own dirt--just others'!

Tuan has been "nesting" in the yard and is feverishly working towards getting some grass planted. Our side yard has been this muddy bog of "chocolate milk" and he's put so much time and energy into digging and installing a french drain, amending the soil, grading the soil and doing everything in his power to help our yard drain and hopefully grow grass! I'm so proud of him and look forward to dealing with grass stains from our kids forays into the yard rather than caked on clay. : )

I saw the nurse practitioner last Friday since my Ob was on vacation. NPs are the best. They are so much more holistic about care and so personal. I love my Ob, don't get me wrong, but once it's time to deliver who my L&D nurse is is far more important to me. I had the same one with J and A and am praying that she'll be working when this one comes. I digressed a bit, but the whole point of this was that I made NO progress and was still 3 cm. Since then, I've had longer, more intense contractions, but nothing consistent. The NP said that my Ob will probably want to schedule an induction at this week's appointment. I'm okay with that because she induces on Tuesdays, usually, and I'll be past my due date then. Maybe it's an old wives tale, but most folks say that "little white boys" benefit from going full term more than other genders and races. Who knows, but expect number 3 to arrive no later than next Tuesday!

So, the bag is packed, we bought a new camera yesterday and the house is partially clean in some areas (I have this fear of going to the hospital with a messy house and returning home to a messy house). I'm going to keep slogging along this afternoon in hopes that any and all activity is bringing us closer!

The Word of the Day is "Detail" I shall use it in a Sentence.

I am detailing the Honda today and getting it ready to sell. The weather is just perfect out here and the kids have been playing outside the last two hours. I was trying to let A skip her nap, but no such luck. We are taking an inside break and waiting for her to go to sleep so the detailing can continue. I hope I don't run out of steam before we go back out--it's starting to feel that way!

The Wind Out of Our Sails

Yesterday, I was an insane woman stubbornly determined to get 5,000 things done. The motto of the day could have been, "stay out of my way, get with the program, pick up that couch and no one gets hurt"! The living room was re-arranged, a love seat evicted from the house (Tuan was able to reason with me that we could just move it out and that a chain saw, followed by burning the said couch was unnecessary). I organized our armoire full of art and sewing and "school" supplies, made room in our bedroom for the crib and rocker, vacuumed the LR about seven times and after the kids went to bed mopped the floors. It felt so, so good to get all of that done.

Today, however, there is no wind in these sails. There is no organizational gleam in my eye. I woke up early, forced myself to stay awake for quiet time (reading and prayer), blogged and read blogs until the kids woke up. They had PBJs and watched the Berenstain Bears while I organized coupons. A "helped" me and had her own stash of expired coupons to sort. "I playin' the game!" she kept exclaiming. After a trip to Kroger, lunch on the road and a quick toss of the perishables in the fridge, all three of us went down for naps. That and putting away some clean clothes is the sum total of the day. I've been in bed since 1:15 and it is now 4:05. I desperately need to: Finish putting away groceries, locate a USB drive in Tuan's pant pockets so I can wash a load of clothes, put away dishes and empty the dishwasher, clean out a car, pack a hospital bag, put away some linens, get supper ready. Okay, not "desperately", perhaps more obligatorily. It's so much cosier to stay upstairs and pretend that a baby will not be arriving in hopefully a week and a half. Yes, the wind has left the building.

Also: why is it that when I let the kids eat a sandwich in the living room with a movie on that they are so, so much cleaner than at the table? We don't do it often, but its so nice to keep the DR clean for a meal. Shouldn't it be the other way around?