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We’d planned on seeing how the weekend went, but after a very restless night, and a trying Saturday morning, we knew that it was time to take Oz in to be put to sleep.  My poor buddy couldn’t walk, wouldn’t eat or drink and was generally miserable.  I slept in the living room with him on Friday night, and he spent some time resting on top of me, but never sleeping.  As hard as it was to do, we knew it was the right time; he was suffering too much.

So I carried him on my lap in the car to the shelter where we picked him up nearly 11 years ago.  They found him in the computer under my maiden name.  They knew we gave him a good life.  We all spent some time with him, and they took him away.

It was all very hard, especially considering my current emotional state, but these are the decisions you have to make when you’re a pet owner.  I’m really going to miss my little buddy.

I’ve struggled with finding pictures of him alone, because he and his “brother”, Sebastian–our 1st cat,  were almost always right on top of each other…until Oz got sick, that is.  Here are some of my favorites.

I sure did love my buddy, and I’ll miss him for a long time to come.

• Oswald isn’t going to make it much longer.  He took a turn for the worse yesterday and is sick, lethargic and generally not himself.  He won’t eat, and peed in Cait’s bedroom today.  We know it is time, so we’re going to give him the weekend, just on the off chance that he does perk up, and the plan is to take him in on Monday to be put down.  I’m going to miss my little snuggler.
• My nausea has been worse than I’ve ever experienced.  This morning I did not drink any coffee, and have had a significant decrease in symptoms.  Still nauseous, mind you, but not gripping the toilet.
• Speaking of nausea, it sort of goes like this: get so hungry I could pass out, eat, and then gag for about 3 hours until I am starving again, and repeat. It’s as fun as it sounds. I do remember it being just like this with Hannah though.
• I’ve been reading some of my archives from when I was newly pregnant the last time.  I was like a psychopath.  Ed says I am mouthy when I’m pregnant.  This is probably true.  I also claimed to be “more nauseous than I’ve ever been” back then too.  So maybe I’m just one big drama queen.  I also mentioned coffee making me nauseous.  I guess you really do forget everything. Granted, it was nearly 5 years ago.  (Really though, this is the worst. Ever.)
• You may not believe it, but I am trying really hard not to be complainy and whiny.  This is 100% for sure the last time I am doing this, so I feel like I should enjoy it a tiny bit.  Not the gagging necessarily, but the general experience.  Anyway, you can totally tell me to shut up when I’m whining.
• I am finally going to see my niece this weekend! She’s coming for a sleepover tomorrow!  Yay!

Once every couple of weeks, I take the kids (or just one or 2 of them depending on the situation) for a quick breakfast at our local donut and coffee joint.  It’s never an overly joyous occasion–kids scrambling to place their orders, find the perfect seat and to get on my last nerve.  They like it though, and even if they forget to thank me, I know they appreciate the change in their normal routine.
I do enjoy taking them though, because of the delightful man who works behind the counter.  A few months ago, when I was there with just Hannah, he struck up a conversation about kids and whatnot and told me that his youngest was 7, and his oldest was “older than me”.  I asked him how old, and he replied “28!”. Yes, I like this man.
Today, he marveled at how well I handled all 3 kids.  “You are a saint!”, he told me “You deserve a medal!  Do you ever get any sleep? you really do a great job with them” and so on and so forth.

I guess, in a world where more often than not I am told “Wow, you really have your hands full!”, the little things, talking to someone who has respect for having a family of small children, rather than horror and sympathy, is very refreshing.

I know that I do ok with them, you know?  But to hear it from someone else, a stranger even…it means a lot to me.

The gags have kicked it in to high gear today.  Coupled with hot flashes.  I really don’t feel well.  But!  Having you all know now, and all of the kind things you said yesterday really do help.  This is why being a blogger is a fantastic thing.  I don’t think I could get this much love and support anywhere else.  While it’s really hard to think about nothing but baby, I don’t plan on becoming All Baby All the Time in my posts and my tweets, but it is nice to be able to vent about the absolute shit that is constant nausea AND the new development of hot flashes.  Nice indeed.

Anyway… this happened this weekend:

Hannah turned 4 on Sunday.  My baby. 4! This is one of her favorite pictures.  She is obsessed with having been in my belly.

She had a really good birthday, which included a trip to the park, dinner at Pizza Hut (GAG), cake at home, and more Squinkies and My Little Pony than a girl could ever want.  She was pleased.  And now we move on to planning the big birthday bash which happens in less than 2 weeks. I don’t know if I’m going to make it through all of that cooking, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it, I suppose.

It’s been killing me not to talk about it.  I am a sharer by nature; an over-sharer even.  I don’t like secrets.  I don’t like them at all, which is why I’m going to let you in on mine. I know you will keep it until I’m ready to share it with the rest of the world.  You will won’t you?

The following items have been in my life for about a week now:

It would seem that I’ve gone and gotten myself knocked up.  I know!

A little more than two weeks ago, I started feeling off.  Sore boobs, tired, irritable.  I chalked it up to being on the verge of my period, not exactly knowing when I was expecting it because when my phone crashed, I lost all of the data in my handy dandy app.  I sort of expected to have my period right around the time of my weekend trip, and I really didn’t give it much thought.

Last Sunday morning, I woke up in our hotel room and felt like balls.  I was nauseous like you wouldn’t believe and I knew the 1.5 drinks I’d had weren’t enough to make me feel that way. I got to thinking on my drive home, sure that I was just over-thinking things and that my mind was playing tricks on me–making me feel nauseous, making the food I grabbed taste horrible and so on.
It was only when I walked in to the house after my long drive, to an amazing steak dinner coked by Ed, when the smell of that dinner caused me to go in to a fit of gagging, that I knew.  I just knew.  After dinner I bought a test, and it was positive, and after a minor nervous breakdown, I was ok. And it was all that I could do last week to not tell everyone. The way I look at it though, is that there is no reason to not talk about it here.  I’m sure I would need to write if something went wrong. There’s no point in keeping secrets here.

So! So far I feel ok.  I go back and forth between being ravenously hungry and hating food.  I’m nauseous and gagging, which is exactly how I always am.  I am exhausted on a level that I have not been since I was pregnant with Eddie.  I’m guessing that I am somewhere between 6 and 7 weeks along, which puts me due in mid to late March. I don’t see the Dr. until August 13th, so we won’t tell our family or other friends until at least then.

Ed and I are both really excited.  The fact that Mr. “I don’t want any more kids” is over the moon about it makes me feel really good about the whole thing. Hannah will be almost 5 by the time the baby is here, which is INSANE.  And of course, we’ve gotten rid of every last  piece of baby paraphernalia we ever owned, so that will be interesting.

So…4 kids.  Holy shit!

Dear Children,

I don’t use the wipes in the bathroom.  It is therefore not my job to know that you have used them all, or to replace them. Take care of it!

Love,

Mama

Dear Children (again),

Why do bathroom emergencies only happen when I am in the shower?

Love,

Wet and Annoyed

Dear Husband,

While I am most appreciative of your taking out the garbage, do you think it would be possible to EVER replace the bag?

Putting you on notice,

Your Wife (For now!!!)

Dear Chick who Took My Old Job,

No, I will not help you train the person who is replacing you.  It has been a year.  Get with the program!

Sincerely,

Not a Pushover

Dear Haley,

You snagged a nail on your paw.  This wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t think the giant German shepherd next door wanted to play with you.  Stop being so pathetic and for the love of Lassie, please stop licking it all the live long day.

Yours Truly,

The Sound of Licking Makes Me Gag

Dear Oswald,

After all we’ve been through, it would be a shame to get rid of you because you’ve made the basement your personal extra large litter box.

Regards,

Poop Scooper Extraordinaire

Dear Dunkin Donuts,

Please stop advertising, preparing and selling your cookies and creme donut.  I cannot resist its evil charms.

Regretfully,

My Belly Resembles Donut Dough

My job has a lot of great perks, including the work at home program and a nice child care stipend.  Another of the perks is rewards points.  Rewards points used to be plentiful, awarded for a job well done, and never expired.  In the program’s heyday, I acquired and hoarded many points and scored great stuff like the original FoodSaver, Eddie’s bed, a crock pot, luggage, coffee maker and toaster, and Oh, our Wii.  I used the points to buy jewelry for my mother and mother-in-law for several Christmases. I used them for our double stroller after Cait was born, and to get the best exersaucer EVER when Eddie was a baby.  I got myself a Kate Spade bag at one point.  You get the picture; the program was AWESOME.

A few years ago, the points program went completely away, and then about a year after that, it was reintroduced in a much more restricted format.  Points come quite sporadically now and they expire quickly.  I’ve recently acquired points equal to $200 if I redeem them for a gift card, and probably more than that if I get merchandise because of various corporate sponsorships.  I’m having a hard time deciding what to get.  Something for me? For the kids? For the family?  It’s so hard!

Most of the giftcard options are out, I think.  I could do Macy’s, Build A Bear, Bath and Body works or Chili’s, or a combination of those.  I don’t feel strongly about any of those places though, which leads me to merchandise.

Here are some of my top picks, all of which would leave me with points left over:

An HD Camcorder

A Sewing Machine

This is one of those things that sounds good in theory but that I would probably never use.

A water filtration system

Although, this seems like just another thing to take up space on my counter.

New DVD players for the car

This seems like a solid choice.
Otherwise I could get a slew of smaller things.  Toys for the kids, earrings or necklaces for me, and so on.  So tell me…what would you do?

I only have one souvenir from this weekend, and it is this:

Don’t worry, none of us actually purchased these douchey hats.

It was such a nice weekend; better than I could have imagined.  It makes me want to meet all of The Internets.
It took me over 7 hours to get home yesterday, which was kind of disappointing.  There was about a half mile section of thruway in PA that shrunk down to 1 lane, and it totally bottlenecked, leaving me stuck.  It sort of sucked, but I decided to enjoy the alone time.  I caught a radio station that went back and forth between current hits, and hits from the late 90’s.  This has caused me to have “girl I’m gonna make you sweat, sweat til you can’t sweat no more…” in my head for the last 24 hours.  Nothing like a good earworm!

I’ve got a crazy work week, have to get the girls’ birthday invites out, and then on Friday, we are having Ed’s mom buried.  Of course, she died 3 years ago. But you know family drama and such caused her ashes to just be locked up at the funeral home since 2009 (Though my boss asked me whether she’s just been on ice all this time, or what.  Um…not so much.) Saturday is a family party, and then…THEN…Hannah turns 4 on Sunday.  I can’t even talk about it.  My baby!  4.

I’ve considered purchasing a domain name and moving my site for quite a while now.  It’s not as if I bring in a ton of traffic, but I like the idea of having my own space. Even as blogging seems to be on the decline, it is a part of me and I like the feeling of owning it.  So here it is, along with all of my old posts and sans pseudonyms.  Is anyone really typing all my kids names in to a search engine to find me anyway?  Probably not.  And if they are, so be it.  I don’t have anythingmuch to hide.

Place missing segue here:
So my girls’ trip is this weekend, and of course I am most excited about spending time with Shelly, Becky and Kori, but second to that, I am excited about my 3 hours alone each way, in a clean rental car that is not full of crumbs and toys and games and screaming people.  I am excited to listen to whatever I want or to even drive in silence.  I am excited for air conditioning.  I am excited for the longest trip I have ever taken on my own.

I’m the type of person who enjoys silence and being alone with my thoughts.  With 3 kids around, I seldom get that opportunity.  So yes, I’m looking forward to the drive, and to hopefully come back as a more relaxed mama.

• ·         I have now been sick for more than 3 weeks.  A call to the dr. yesterday, after having finished my z-pak on Tuesday and still not being well yielded this advice: Try some Advil Cold and Sinus and saline spray.  Call me Monday if that doesn’t help.  Um…really?  3 weeks, lady.  3 weeks of a cold, that turned in to a clogged ear that turned in to the worst sinus pain and pressure I’ve ever had, and you tell me Advil? She didn’t even tell me herself either; she had the receptionist call me back.  I hope I don’t end up at urgent care this weekend.  I just want to be better.  I have plans!

• ·         Liv, who has always had a rather difficult personality, has really kicked it up a notch these past few weeks.  I’m talking screaming, tantruming, hitting me, (she actually bitch slapped me at bedtime the other night.  I can’t even.) and I am at a total loss.  I don’t know what to do with her, and it makes me sad.

• ·         I need to have my eyebrows waxed but I am afraid because my face has gotten a bit tan.  I don’t want eyebrow tan lines.  Could you imagine? The alternative is bushy eyebrows though.  I think I’m screwed.

• ·         Keeping all 3 kids out of camp on Fridays was a Very Bad Idea.

• ·         I went swimming (in our 3-foot pool) with the kids yesterday. They were amazed and all like “Mama, you can swim??” Where have they been for the past 8 years?

• ·         We have found 3 dead rats in our yard this summer.  We don’t know where they have come from, only that the dog has killed them.  I think they are passing through our yard from one of the neighbors behind us because Haley has been spending a ton of time behind our garage.  I am beyond skeeved out.  Beyond Skeeved.

• ·         Finally, today I was reminded of this email forward I got several years ago at work.  My friend and I laughed for days, and every year or so, she will send it to me, or I will send it to her.  The email body is this: My friend is getting rid of his dog (FREE).  His wife says the dog stares at her all day. See picture below: