Thursday, April 24, 2014

Pregnancy is Weird

Pregnancy is beautiful, amazing, hard. Whatever. Mostly, pregnancy is weird. There are a million strange symptoms you could have because of being pregnant, and most of the time, no one knows exactly why. Some pregnancy symptoms could either be a sign of everything being perfectly normal--or a sign that something is terribly wrong. Like nausea or bleeding early on.

I read lots--probably too much--with my first pregnancy. I read a little bit with my second, because I knew that there were differences with a second pregnancy. But no one told me until I complained of it that your third is an entirely new battle too. Everything is already nice and stretched out and so there's a lot more pain and discomfort a lot earlier. Lots of women with three children tell me now that their third pregnancy was so much harder. Well, too late.

I've been more tired, more sore, and more uncomfortable a lot earlier on. Plus I've had weird symptoms that I never had before. Maybe I was just lucky before.

Swelling--I had minor swelling in my hands and feet before. But I never had my feet (or more often, just my left foot) swell up into marshmallows and get deep lines in them from wearing shoes. I guess it gives me an excuse to wear sandals everywhere. Those give me lines too, but at least I can slip them off when I sit down.

Bloody noses--This has seriously been a completely new and annoying one. I've gone weeks without a bloody noses, but then I'll have them in clusters. They come on suddenly and often last for twenty minutes. It's so fun to have a bloody nose in public. Or to have to pick up your daughter from school while holding your nose with a tissue. Or, my favorite, getting a bloody nose in the middle of the night and sitting in the bathroom pinching your nose at 3 a.m. instead of sleeping.

Baby activity--This probably has more to do with the baby than it being my third. I felt him move at 11 weeks. And unlike my girls, I don't have to be resting to feel him move. In fact, if you're ever sitting next to me, just watch my belly. It moves and wiggles frequently. I'm pretty sure I have bruises. Late evening is his favorite time and I timed him moving nonstop for more than an hour and a half. I'm excited to meet this child, but a little afraid of his activity level when he's a toddler.

One thing that has not surprised me is the tactless comments. At about 7 months along (where I am now) with all three is when people started assuming I was due any day now. Nope. Next they'll think I'm having twins. But as you can see from the pictures, I have a long way left to go. My belly can always get bigger. And thus far, it's never "popped."

Baby #3, 30 weeks
Baby #2, 40 weeks

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

A River Runs Through It

When we bought our house, we had no idea that we were purchasing river and lake front property.

I've lived in the desert where the thunder and lightning is spectacular. I've lived in the Pacific Northwest where it rains for days on end. But I've never seen anything like a Florida rain and thunderstorm. I took the video when it had slowed down a bit.



Tuesday, April 1, 2014

My Least Favorite Holiday

Can April Fool's Day even be called a holiday? There's lots of traditions around it, but no one is sure why it started or what the point is. I found an interesting blog post with facts about April Fool's Day: Twenty Interesting Things About April Fool's Day. And there are some funny and clever things on blogs like Make It and Love It--in previous years she's done posts like chocolate covered veggies and embellished disposable diapers on April 1. There's cutesy stuff to do for your kids like making a cupcake look like a piece of corn on the cob. But that's far beyond the kind of time I'm going to take on just about any holiday, especially April 1.

The real reason I don't like April Fool's Day is that for the most part, any pranks or practical jokes made on this "holiday" are at someone else's expense. It creates a mess or a problem for someone else, or makes them look stupid so other people can laugh at them. And any time a joke has to be at another person's expense, it's not really funny.

This sentiment has sometimes given me the label of "not having a sense of humor." Well, having a different idea of what's funny than someone else doesn't mean I don't have a sense of humor. And I wrote a published paper about that as an undergrad, so don't get me started unless you want to hear the arguments I made in that paper. (And no, that's not an April Fool's Day joke.)