3, 12, 84

The third trimester is here! I have been pregnant for 28 weeks--196 days. That means 3 months left. That's 12 weeks, or 84 days to go. And I know there's no guarantee that I will have this baby ON the due date, but Jay was born on his due date and Rose was born 7 hours after her due date. So with my track record, I feel safe to use those numbers. If they're a few days off, I'll deal with that when it comes. I need my countdown.

Last Wednesday @27 weeks.

I am so glad to be in the home stretch of my last, hardest pregnancy! Every day is like a gift, saying "here you go, that's another day done." It's so nice to always have that one guarantee every single night, no matter how little I felt able to accomplish that day, the day is DONE. Each time I go to bed, I wake up the next morning with less days left. That makes it sound like I live in a horrible tick-tock-tick-tock state of mind. I really try not to let the countdown control me. I want to find the joy in every day and be happy in spite of how I feel physically. It is my challenge right now. Some days I triumph and other days I break down and my patient husband (and/or my Mom) has to listen to yet another boo-hoo-for-me monolog. But the days are passing. Next month is September, which is only one month before the month of my due date!

And although I still rarely can think of anything that sounds good enough to cook (1-2 times per week on a good week) and I still feel nauseated to some degree 24/7, when I compare my current self to my one-month-ago self, I can tell I'm doing better. As long as I take that blasted anti-barf medicine.

Three weeks ago I experimented with my medicine dosage because I noticed that I was up another rung on the ladder from the queasy abyss. I tried only taking one of the two pills--the Zofran--for two whole days. Then I started feeling worse and worse and weaker and more dangerous (aka close to barfing). And with the way things have gone this pregnancy, I fear barfing above all else because once I start, I can never stop till I'm stuck full of needles and half dead. So I swallowed two pills again and it took two more days for me to climb back onto the previous rung of that ladder. While that experiement did not land me in the ER like my last experiment did, it was kind of disheartening to have such strong evidence of my dependence on the anti-puke pills. I keep hoping that I'll be able to stop taking them, but I think I'll put those hopes on the shelf for another month or two...or just wait till I'm not pregnant anymore.

Piglet, modeling a diaper and shoes.

This week I think I have been feeling a little bit nesty! That is a fun feeling when you have the "surge of energy" that the books claim accompanies the nesting urge. But I feel nesty minus the energy part. So nothing is coming of it except me asking (and trying to resist asking) Jeff to do even more for me, poor man. What is energy, anyways? I have this vague memory of what it feels like, but I can't really imagine myself having any of it right now. Every single thing I do takes careful thought. I have a tiny bucket of energy to ration out each day, and it is usually used up by feeding myself and keeping the kitchen clean. Every now and then I can cook something and I once in a while I do go to the store or clean somthing else in the house, only to spend the next 24+ hours plastered to my recliner with droopy eyelids. Three hours of church on Sunday makes me literally unable to keep my eyes open when we get home. It is a strange feeling to be so out of control of mySELF!

This baby girl seems to enjoy break dancing, especially late at night. I tried getting a video of my stomach rippling for you, but I only got one or two good pokes. Often, my belly shakes and jumps alarmingly high. Jeff even saw it the other night.

And then there are the SHAKY hunger pangs. My appetite is growing, while my ability to think of edible foods remains the same. It gets tricky. When I start getting hungry and I don't know what to eat, I feel so cornered! If I wait too long, I get super shaky. My hands tremble visibly and I feel weak. My kind doctor let me opt out of the glucose screening test because I'd never survive a morning without breakfast. Speaking of shaky hunger...

 

PEACHES!

 

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Visiting

We were gone for a week and now we’re back home again! Last weekend we went to visit my parents and then that week we swung down and met the White folks at the lakehouse for a quick White family laketime. Family is the best. [I have to mention that a certain baby belly is sucking all brainpower from me so this post may not be a very compelling read.]

At my parents’ house, we did plenty of low-key hanging out with Mom, Dad, Kyle, and Mel. We watched lots of Castle, and my Mom fed me all of her food. For you non-relations, Kyle is my brother who just got back from his mission at Christmastime so we haven’t seen much of him in a long while. It was good to get one last glimpse of him before he heads off to Cornell next week. Kyle scored major uncle points with Rose by playing the piano for her while she danced and then turning on more music and dancing with her. Rose sure likes to dance. Jeff scored major points with me by taking the kids to the park and the pool while I relaxed with my Mom lots. The kids got their energy out while having a blast with Daddy, and I got some quality Mom-time, which I always love. It was a 3 way win!

Story time with Grama Meri—always a favorite. She has a whole shelf of the best books.

Park time with Aunt Mel.

Music time with Uncle Kyle.

A little morning Daddy-daughter yoga. We looked up some yoga poses on Google images for them to try. It was very entertaining.

iPad time.

Snuggle time.

Then came the lake. We went to the lakehouse from Tuesday-Thursday and various White relations dropped in and out while we were there. Dan and Leslie (Grama and Grampa) came for the day on Tuesday (the lake is just 3.5 hours from Grandview), and Steph, Jasen, Layne, and Tate came Tuesday-Wednesday evening. We enjoyed the numerous amenities of the lakehouse: boat, hot tub, teeter totter, kayaks, trampoline, couches, tinker toys, fire pit, grill, and scenery. And by we I mean everyone except this pregnant lady enjoyed the lakey stuff while I watched, an arrangement that was fine by me since this babybelly not only sucks my brainpower but also my energy/sense of adventure.

Trying hats on Tate.

It was in the low 60s and chilly on Wednesday morning so we popped open the hot tub, which thankfully was not too hot for the kids. I love these cousins. [Tate—age 8 months, Rose—age 3.5, Layne—age 20 months, Jay—age 5]

Tinker Toys!

Right when Jasen started the fire, the sun came out and we roasted our faces along with the marshmallows.

S’mores at noon? It’s a White thing.

Kayaking Tate.

Jeff swam pulling Jay and Rose on the tube all the way out to the lake trampoline.

Jasen kayaked pulling Steph and Layne out to the tramp too.

Jay loves jumping off the trampoline into the water.

Meanwhile, back on shore, I enjoyed the scenery.

 
More Tinker Toys and I think those other ones are called Zoobs.

This is the life. Rose enjoyed some sunbathing.

I have to do a quick comparison between last year and this year. Rose fits the same swimsuit as she wore last year, but she’s a solid 5+ inches taller. It’s all in her legs. I wonder where she got that, ha ha ha.

2013                                                        2014

Swimming by the dock.

We love the lake!

Instagram

I use Facebook. I have no desire for any more social media. Then a month ago, it was time to decide whether or not to renew my poor dying dumbphone (as in opposite of smartphone) plan. Cue side note interlude (be patient, it’ll all come together in the end):

My old call-and-text-only cell phone was starting to do strange things like: default to the most annoying ring tone ever. The call connection was horrible. And the battery life? Ha. It was time to move on. Jeff discovered a no-contract month by month plan that cost within $10 of our old plan (we hate cell phone contracts). We have had two old iPhone 3’s (bought cheap from family members) for a long time. So we put the two together and POOF! I have an iPhone. It is kind of a dinosaur compared to my iPad, but it still does a million more things better and faster than my old dumbphone, so I’m content.

AND that brings me back to Instagram. I thought you could only use it on a smartphone, so I never even considered it a possibility. Turns out you can use it on an iPad too. Whatever. When I started using the iPhone, I felt like it needed a few apps on it, so I downloaded Instagram. I have used it for a month now, and I’m starting to get the point of it. All you do is post a picture with or without a caption, and the people who follow you can look at it and/or comment on it. That’s all. It seems superfluous for any Facebooker, but it’s kind of nice not having all that other junk that people post mixed in with the good stuff: pictures!

I also discovered that most of my family prefers Instagram to Facebook, so that helped me want to use it more. So. That’s it. When I first used Instagram that’s actually what I said: “that’s it?” There’s not much to it! Even my Dad joined Instagram this week, which is awesome since neither of my parents uses any sort of social media.

So if I occasionally post a square picture, it’s probably from Instagram.

selfies

“This is Daddy, Mommy, Jay, Rose, and Amber.”

This boy and his Legos. The other day he said “Mommy, I love you as much as I love my little Legos.”

When Rose is tired, she sleeps. Who cares about laying down with a pillow?

Since Grampa Dan was out of town this weekend, Jeff took over and made pancakes for breakfast on Saturday—Jay ate that whole plate-sized cake! He ate most of it for breakfast and the rest of it for lunch.

We haven’t been doing much around here—the temperature heated way back up again so we’ve been hanging out in our blessedly cool home and swimming at the Prosser pool sometimes. It’s so nice having Jeff home for the summer. The kids stick to him like glue and they have so much fun together.

Jeff has also been battling the yard—the lawnmower broke right when he was trying to mow the extra thick grass growth after we got home from the lake, so it grew even more while we waited for the new mower to be delivered. Then that mower turned out to be weak and wimpy, so Jeff drove to Yakima and then to the Tri Cities in the same day to return and replace it. The weedwhacker also died at the same time. Then he mowed over a rabbit hole containing five newborn bunnies. The mower is just a reel mower, so don’t worry—no bunny brains were sprayed around, but Jeff did have to get rid of the poor creatures since they couldn’t live in the middle of our yard with no burrow and no mother (don’t tell Rose). Also, one zone of our sprinkler system stopped watering, so our side yard is all brown and Jeff has started watering it with the hose. We don’t even have a garden this year but there is so much to be done out there! And I sure am no help with my big belly and small energy.

Instead of helping my dutiful husband with the sweltering yard work, I have been sitting in my chair reading, reading, reading. I take the library’s two week checkout period as a personal challenge. Recently I read over 1400 pages in under 14 days! When my body is occupied with growing a baby, reading is one of the only things I actually CAN do. So I do it a lot. It’s a welcome distraction from my lingering, steady nausea. I like reading, but I prefer to have other options that only my normal non-queasy able-bodied self can give. 99 more days!

Ok, now July can end. The blog is caught up.

Popcorn Popping

Starring Rose:

Ape Cave

Yesterday, Jeff took Jay and Rose on an adventure to Ape Cave, which is a lava tube cave near Mt. St. Helens. They left at 7am and didn’t get home till 9:30pm (it’s a 3.5 hour drive to Mt. St. Helens). Jeff says that the trip was epic enough to rival last year’s infamously muddy Shi Shi Beach hike. [I just looked up that blog post and relived the gory glory of that trip. Last summer was ahh-mazing.] I still can’t believe I wasn’t THERE for this family adventure. Pang! Twinge! Just you wait till next summer.

Quick background info on Ape Cave: it consists of two lava tubes (aka thick tunnels in the lava bed), called the upper and lower tubes. The lower tube is shorter and kind of tapers off so you can only walk so far into the cave before it ends and you have to turn back. That’s the one we did a few years ago. Jeff had explored the upper tube two other times, so he knew what to expect, more or less. The upper tube is just over a mile long—1.3 miles to be exact, and it has openings on both ends so hikers walk through the cave. There is a trail (1.3 miles long) on the outside of the tube that takes you back to the start. So round trip for the upper tube = 2.6 miles.

Flashback—here’s what the kids looked like last time we were at Ape Cave:

  
Rose, 3 years ago.

Little 2 year old Jay with his “special light.”

Jay was so little! Three years ago, I carried baby Rose and Jeff carried Jay through the upper tube cave. It was short and dark and rocky, but doable with small kids. I thought the lower tube would be similar, but Jeff set the record straight after their 5 hour trek underground through the cave.

I have very few witty insights or clever turns of phrases for this year’s story of Ape Cave since I was not there for the journey, but from what I can see, it was hard going. The Washington Trails Association describes it this way: “the tube beds are rough and uneven.” That’s all they give you. What is with trail info and understatements??

Here’s what I can tell you about it all, secondhand: Jeff came back exhausted and sore from wriggling, scooting, and climbing over rocks while lifting and carrying kids, all in the pitch black with only headlamps for light. Jeff’s light burned out during the trip, along with his spare, so all he had was a small handheld flashlight for the rest of the way. Near the start, they took a wrong side path that had them crawling on their stomachs for 20 minutes before Jeff decided it was the wrong way. Rose did not like that part. Jeff says he laid on his back, put Rose on his stomach, and scoot-wiggled along with her when she was upset at the crawling and head-bonking. Talk about dedication! It took them 5 hours to get through the 1.3 mile lava tube cave.

 

They met 3 nice people on the way and they decided to help each other out through the cave. So Jeff lifted some strangers up 'n over the big rocks too! He said at one part there was an 8 foot high rock to scale, with a maybe 2-foot high stepping stone in front of it. I asked how he would have managed that obstacle without those nice people, and he admitted he didn’t know and threw out the idea that maybe he’d have had each kid take turns clinging to his back while he climbed. Insert mother bear-Shaina growl of disapproval. Jeff helped these people, and they helped him with the kids. Little Miss Rose perked up for the last quarter of the cave and Jeff said she kept getting ahead of them like a little mountain goat, climbing rocks all nimble and quick.

My hard core family. They had McDonald’s Happy Meals for dinner, which for the kids was an exciting way to end their big adventure. Rose calls her McDonald’s toy her “happy toy.”

Verdicts:
Jeff—“It was awesome! Epic! Exhausting! I’m so sore everywhere!” 
Rose—“I…I…I don’t know…” (mixed feelings)
Jay—“Can we do it again next year?”

Quiet

Today is a strange day. First of all, it’s a cloudy cool day, which never happens in the Yakima Valley in July (last week we had 4 days in triple digits). So that’s throwing me off. Second, my family is on an adventure without me. Sniff, yes. I am too feeble to attempt wilderness excursions like we did all over the state last summer. Jeff and I decided that the rest of the family should not be deprived of QMT (quality mountain time) just because I’m busy growing a baby. So this morning, Jeff and the kids left on a little spelunking expedition to Ape Cave by Mt. St. Helens without me. I’m home alone, doing my best to keep my forlorn feelings at bay.

Our house is silent. Well, the trash truck came about 2 hours ago and that made a little noise, but since then, the house has been quiet. I sat in my chair trying to figure out what to DO with this intensely quiet time for a full thirty minutes after everyone left, but all my brain would do was marvel at the silence. Maybe I’m so used to thinking against background noise that when there’s no resistance in the sound waves, I can’t figure out how to work my brain?

So I got dressed and went on a walk out in the unseasonably cool air. Refreshing! It was only my second walk in 5.5 months, so it was slow (as in 25 minutes for one flat mile), but it felt GOOD to go outside and move around a little. And since I have zero responsibilities today, I could afford to spend some of my very limited and valuable energy on a frivolous walk. As I strolled along sedately, I did have numerous pangs for running. I found myself daydreaming about the inexplicable satisfaction of a good heart-pumping run. At one point, I was even thinking fondly of the numerous times I pushed the fully-loaded double stroller up a small rise and how I could barely do a slow-tiptoe jog pushing that thing sometimes. That right there just shows how easy it is to romanticize even the most arduous task when it’s out of reach. These reflections helped me remember that I am not, thankfully, permanently pregnant, and I will be able move and groove again in not too long from now (106 days, not counting postpartum recovery). It was a comforting thought.

I came home from my walk, turned on some Piano Guys music nice 'n loud, and indulged in a little cleaning—the small time tidying up that is rarely worthwhile unless the kids are asleep (or gone). I thought if I’m going to have a day all by myself, I should be able to enjoy an uncluttered family room and a clean swept kitchen for once. Now that it’s relatively orderly in here, though, I’m discovering that the tidiness seems to accentuate the absence of my family!  Yurg.

In six years, all of my kids will be in school. What am I going to do with all that quiet time? There are no universities around here where I could get some extra degrees. I don’t want to work at a Mercado. Thank goodness I have six years to figure that one out.

Ok, that’s all I really have to say right now. Sorry it’s not more exciting. But I do have 3 or 4 cute pictures to share to make up for it!

Sleeping Beauty.

All the stubborn 3 year-old-ness evaporates when she’s asleep, leaving long-lashed, red-lipped perfection.

We had Spencer over twice in the last week, and those kids love to PLAY! And swim!

Jeff started reading a chapter of Harry Potter to the kids before bed every night. They love it! His character voices are pretty amazing. This 20-30 minutes of story time right before bed has helped Jay and Rose fall asleep so much more easily than before. In fact, Rose has fallen asleep during the story a few times. It’s also just such a cozy thing to do with kids—my Mom read to us almost every night when I was little, and it’s one of my favorite memories. I got to take over reading one night when Jeff wasn’t feeling well, and it really was fun, even though my Hagrid voice isn’t nearly as booming and impressive as Jeff’s.

You know how I feel about the sky here.