Sympathy Weight

Sympathy weight gain is often common. It is horrible to be surrounded by thinness when you are in a stage of expansion. So, it is nice when you are joined by others. I am not talking about my husband. He is nice, but not that nice to me. (He did name my leg stumpy in the first place.) I am talking about stumpy and stumpy's best buddy, Chubby.

That is right (or left) stumpy has now been joined by leg #2, how nice.


Stumpy.



Stumpy and friend.

I try really hard to rest and put my feet up. I can't wear those Sheer Energy Panty Hose in the warm weather. Besides I need flip flops and they look really tacky with "Hose" on. I try not to waddle, but I've lost the ability to bend my foot (stairs are quite a trick).

This is all my fault.

I don't know how many poor, pregnant, swollen, women I have laughed at as I use one of my favorite descriptors, "pregnant toes" second only to "pregnant nose." I remember referring to one poor girl's toes as "Vienna Sausages." See karma has gotten me again.

For now, I long for my scrawny, white, legs with a valuable lesson learned. I am looking forward to seeing how big I can get from my thighs down (it will make the weight loss all that more dramatic). My newest trick is putting chubby on stumpy and letting it sit fora couple minutes, then moving it and seeing the crater of an indention left in my foot. It is cool, in that Vienna Sausage sort of way.


Look for the dent on stumpy.

How Many?

How many eggs am I required to let 4 eager boys dye? I can't do 1 dozen, 3 lame eggs would be...lame. But, I can't do 4 dozen. I can't stand the thought of opening the fridge to the smell of farts for weeks. And another thing, only 3 boys eat eggs. How long will it take those egg-eaters to down our colored collection? Too Long.

What can I make with boiled eggs? How can I balance the egg coloring fun with the egg eating not-so-fun?

This is what is on my mind until Friday when we have to color the eggs. How many eggs is too many eggs?

My life is really busy right now, can you tell? I am focusing all my brain power on something that doesn't matter just to avoid all that does. Denial is where I choose to live.

Shower-In-A-Box

LOOK WHAT CAME IN THE MAIL!
A HUGE PINK BOX!

It was from my sister. She threw me a baby shower. It is a pink shower in a box! Could a baby shower get better than that? I don't like showers for me. I want to win every game, but the large belly gets in the way. And who really likes people looking at you in your rounded state? I would have loved to beat my family at the games, but really, this was a fantastic surprise. I did miss chicken salad sandwiches, and I could go for an eclair (sure, now I have a new craving to take care of). But really, does it get better than this?!
THANK YOU SO VERY MUCH FAMILY!!!!

I really can't believe that these clothes are for me to keep. I have admired little girly clothes from afar for years, but never imagined that they would ever come into my house to stay. I told Darin that if "George" comes out instead, I will be so disappointed. I will love him, but he will wear these clothes at least once. I would have a very hard time parting with these darling girly things without seeing them on a baby. Thanks to all my family for sending "Flower" such lovely things, and for making me smile every time I open a box.

The Fortune Teller

We are all familiar with the origami fortune teller of our childhood. You know the one that has colors, then numbers, then fortune. Jag found an old one of Christians (3rd graders LOVE to make these things) and asked me to play. First I pick 3- "1-2-3" Next I pick RED- "r-e-d" Next I pick 9- Here comes my fortune! "You are on the biggest loser." I look at Jag, who is laughing, and ask "What was that?"

"It's a good one mom. It fits you."

"What was that, JAG?"

"Well mom, you are really fat. Biggest losers are really fat like you."

"JAG..." Next follows a lecture, just for my own self-esteem, about being pregnant and gaining wait without being able to help it. Those donuts I craved for 2 months, I am sure had nothing to do with me being fit for biggest loser.

Just a hint... Don't pick #9 or let a 5 year old tell you your fortune.

Spring Break with 1 Million

We just finished our Spring Break. 1 week off with perfect weather made me want to have some fantastic times with the boys. However, there were a million people out there trying to do the same thing. Unlike some places, everyone in the San Antonio area (all school districts, colleges, etc.) have the SAME spring break. That means (why didn't I think about this before trying to make plans with the boys?) that everywhere that could be packed, was. I wanted to do something every day, but still get the necessary things done.

Monday: groceries. Even in spring break it is necessary (or more so) to have food in the house. We also went to McDonald's to get a treasured and rarely received Happy Meal! Then the boys spent the rest of the day playing outside in the sun, while I read on the couch. Perfect.

Tuesday: We wanted to get out and go to the Witte Museum. It is a fantastic science based museum. We happened to show up on their busiest day EVER! Over 8000 people went to the museum. After waiting in endless lines just to get in, finally, the boys had a great time. I could see all kinds of fun possibilities with this museum. We had to cut our time short because we were starving ( I hadn't planned on the wait). I bought a yearly pass so that we can go back without the rest of the city joining us.

Wednesday: After being out Tuesday, I didn't want to face any crowds. We decided to make a sandbox for the backyard. We bought a little swimming pool and 200 pounds of sand. They have spent hours in Noah's little sand box. I looked out yesterday, while Noah was sleeping, and there were 8 big kids either around the edge of the pool or standing in the pool trying to play. I really wanted to take a picture of all the kids playing in Noah's little pool, but I didn't want to scare them off.

Thursday: Another beautiful lazy day. We went and slowly browsed the library. Came home with a ton of books and spent the afternoon playing and reading.

Friday: Time to get out again. This time I thought we'd use our zoo passes and enjoy the sun and the animals. Oh wait, that was the same idea that a million people had as well. We had traffic stopped on the freeway, I had no idea that it was all zoo traffic. After an hour of stopped, where is a parking place, traffic we decided (I decided) that I was not about to walk for a mile just to get to the front gate. We left and had our picnic at a local park, which was too crowded as well.


Noah couldn't get through the maze of plastic stuff, so Christian hauled him all over on his back. What a great pal.

Finally!

Davis finally saved enough money to buy himself a motor scooter. He has been saving every penny for a year. All birthday money, holiday money, random wonderful money baring cards from grandparents... all money has been put aside (except for this 10% tithing and 20% savings of course :0 ). I felt a little bad about the fact that I was so inconsistent with allowance funds. He has not a nickle to his name, but a smile is constantly plastered on his little face. There is nothing like the satisfaction of working for and earning something you really want.
This is as much of a smile as he could muster...he was trying to be the cool boy on the scooter.

Stump And Bacon

My big leg is the ugly part of being pregnant. Things have gotten worse with each child, and this girl is doing number on my body. My leg, just the right one, swells and is really ugly. Darin calls it a stump or my sausage. My toes look mostly normal, but I am getting a crease at the base (where the toes meet with the foot)...who has a toe crease?! At least the weather is getting warmer and I can cram my stump (Darin's words) into a flip flop.

(I think I had an ankle there once.)
(I'm not going to show the entire leg, that would be too scary.)

Sometimes I wear lovely support hose in a grandma nude shade. The other day Davis noticed my lovely "tan" and said, "Wow, look what pregnancy is doing to your skin color. That is cool." I said that it was anything but cool, but the boy insisted that he liked it. I finally removed my slipper and told him that pregnancy was also giving me webbed toes. Then he realized that they were socks, not skin. Disappointed.

Noah loves my belly. He loves to rub and kiss it. Mostly he loves to look at the thing that used to be a cute inney belly button. He looks at it and tells me that it looks like there's bacon in it. What?! Bacon, he swears there's bacon in my button. Could be, I guess, I have a hard time seeing what I've dropped down there.

(The Pork Belly.)