Baby is:

• 34 Weeks
• Just packing on pure baby chub at this point and perfecting his lungs.  You know, for all of the screaming and crying that he’s going to be doing

I am:

• Tired.  If I don’t nap in the afternoon, I’m a pure bitch.  There’s no way to sugar coat that.
• Waddling now.  I couldn’t walk straight if I wanted to.
• Peeing every 2 minutes.  I’m like a dog marking my territory in the most annoying way possible.
• Pretty sure that the baby is dropping or has dropped with these last 2 symptoms.

Oh, the memories:

• It’s all coming back to me how hard it is to function.  It’s hard to get in and out of cars, up and down from the couch, on and off of chairs, and in and out of bed.  Readers, think of me fondly next time you pop off of the couch and grab a glass of water from the kitchen.  I’m like a sloth…. who makes a lot of grunting noises.

Surprising:

• So with Lucas ignorance was bliss.  I didn’t realize that his movements went down and I should be concerned and after his delivery and fact that he was so tangled in his cord I’m now terrified that it’s going to happen again.  I haven’t felt the baby really wack me in the last 10 minutes, should I be worried about this?  Maybe I should call the doctor to check.  Oh, there he is.  But is that enough movement?  How long between movements was that?  They don’t seem as strong as I thought they were, maybe I should go get checked out?  All.  Day.  Long.  If he’s not moving, I’m freaking out why and when he is moving I’m freaking out if it’s enough.  I can’t wait until this kid is here already so I can obsess over him in person while ignoring him at the same time (because isn’t that what you do to a second child?).

I’ve been slacking, I get it.  I’m writing about 34 weeks, even though I’m 35 already.  Just pretend that this was about 5 days ago.

I also missed week 33:

That’s right, week 33 was partially spent on Mackinac Island.  It’s a tiny, historic island between lower Michigan and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan (the bridge between the two is in the background of my photo).  The cool thing about this place is that you have to take a ferry, and there aren’t any cars on the island.  We’ve been meaning to go since we moved to Michigan and the reality of needing to go before there were 4 of us was sinking in, so we went.  I was excited, but also secretly terrified that something was going to happen while I was a walk, boat, and 4 hour car ride away from my doctor and hospital.  Yep, probably risky at 33 weeks and that’s why I never asked my doctor for permission.  It all worked out and was soooo  much fun but I was swelling up and hurting pretty bad by the time we got home.  It was a lot of walking this late in the game and there were some things that I just wasn’t able to do, which really made me sad.  There’s a fort at the top of the hill on the island that we wanted to go through and I just couldn’t bring myself to admit that it was out of my reach, but we never got to go because I “wasn’t feeling well” which was as close as I could come.  It was a tough pill to swallow to try to do something and see something that would normally be no big deal and struggle and not be able to do it.  I hate asking for help for things that I should be able to do, and I hate making people not do something they want to because I can’t.  While I had a blast on the island and I’m thrilled that we went, it was in the back of my mind that I felt like I was holding everyone back.  So we’re going to have to return so that we can scale that hill and fort and go check out some of the historic hotels.

Now on to 34 weeks.

This week included Father’s Day.  What a better way to celebrate Angel then by getting ready to welcome another little boy into our family?  And because Angel is such an awesome dad, you know how he wanted to celebrate? He took us out to a nice brunch, and then took Lucas to go get a new truck toy.  It was so adorable and selfless that I wanted to cry hormonal tears into my Tums bottle.

Once you have kids, your words come back to bite you.  I’ve been working hard on “please” and “thank you” with Lucas.  I know he’s understanding it because not only is he using it (correctly), but today he told me “say ‘thank you, Lucas'” when he got my shoes for me.  Touche, you pint sized component.  My mom and I were laughing about it and she reminded me that it never ends and used the snippit that I posted on Father’s Day as an example (that wisdom came from her).  Here’s another piece of proof that your daughter hears what you say, mom: My kid is really starting to get a personality and be a mini me.  It’s never too late to decide what kind of Mom that I want to be and I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately.  Here’s what I’ve come up with: I don’t want to be a cool Mom.  I’m not going to be a friend to my kids.  My kids are going to have a life time of opportunities to make friends but I am the only mom they have the chance to have.  They don’t need a friend, they need a Mom.  I want them to know that my “yes” means “yes” and my “no” means “no” and I’m well on my way when my 2 year old is pointing out to me that I asked him for a favor and never said “thank you.”  The rules apply to Mom as well.

There’s my verbal vomit for 33 and 34 weeks.  Stay tuned for week 35, which should be coming any day now.

Baby is:

• 32 Weeks
• Making his presence known with some painful movements.

I am:

• Feeling my sciatic nerve.  This baby is literally a pain in my ass.
• Hauling around a chest to feed a nation.  Let’s take a minute to talk about my boobs.  No?  We don’t need to because you can see them from wherever you are reading this?  I believe you.
• Feeling pretty exhausted by this whole pregnancy thing.  I’m mastering the “I’ve given up” look and if I didn’t feel obligated to shower and put on makeup once a week for these blog photos it would probably never happen.  I feel so big and fat sometimes that it’s hard to keep my chin up.  Luckily, I can just prop it up on my boobs.

Oh, the memories:

• I’m suddenly scared of delivery.  Terrified. It’s one of those things that I don’t think about until I’m fully committed and without it being that way this would never happen.  I’m so freaked out by having another c section that I woke up in the middle of the night this week and started crying.  I’m even more scared this time because I already have a little boy at home who needs me and I’m going to be gone for 2 days having surgery.

Surprising:

• I take prison showers: 5 minutes, cold, and with an audience.  This time around I have a tiny man in my bedroom getting into things and yelling at me while I try to shower.  Not really pregnancy related, but is a new experience when mobility is already limited.

I want to take a moment to pat myself on the back.  Lucas and I were at Target this week and at the check out line, Lucas reached down grab a box of animal crackers off of the shelf and gave it to me with a big smile and said “aminal crackers please, mama?” so I said “okay!” and told him to give it to the cashier.  After she gave it back he asked me to open it and when I did and gave it back he said “thank you” with a big smile and started eating them while I finished checking out.  The cashier looked at me and said “You have such a polite boy!”  I thanked her but in the back of my head I’m proud of the fact that all of our hard work at not raising an asshole is finally paying off and being noticed by strangers.  By all means, don’t think that he acts like this all of the time.  We’ve been that family more than once in many different types of venues.  But for just a moment, I looked like the mom who’s son acts like that all of the time and I felt the glares from all other moms in the store.  It was everything I dreamed it would be.

Short post this week (4 days late), but I have a husband who is outside grilling dinner and pushing Lucas on the swing.  It’s like mom porn and I’m dying to go join them.  So frankly, you all just aren’t as important.