Ouch.

The end of this pregnancy has definitely been more uncomfortable and exhausting than my other two. It could have something to do with having to chase two kids while being pregnant. Just a guess. For me, weeks 15-30 are generally great. I feel great, have energy, don't feel sick, I'm not sore, etc. But, I think if I felt that way the whole time though, I'd neer want to give birth! So, in a wierd sort of way, I'm thankful I feel this crummy. It just means the time is drawing near. My denial is ending - I'm feeling more ready to accept the inevitable labor and birth process ahead. And more importantly, I'm looking forward to meeting the newest addition to our family.

I heard some great news yesterday - one of my best friends from childhood is expecting her first child! I'm thrilled to death for her and I know she will be an awesome mom. When she told me, it dawned on me that we have known each other for almost 25 years. And even though I have 3 kids already, it just doesn't seem like we're possibly old enough to be having kids of our own. From the day we met in kindergarten, I still have tons of memories of the experiences we shared together. Like standing at the end of her dock in the freezing cold to pour Magic Shell chocolate in our mouths and let it solidify, spying on the boy next door to her house, our rollerblading club, playing soccer together for 10 +/- years, and the list goes on. It just doesn't seem like it was that long ago. I guess we're growing up. :)

Why?

Micah has officially hit the "why" stage. In the 1 hour time span of he and I cooking a single dessert today, I counted 72 why's. And I'm sure I missed a few. Here are just a few examples...

• "Why are you not using the whole stick of butter?"
• "Mom, why is that called vanilla?"
• After attempting to lick his fingers after getting egg all over them as I quickly yell "NO!" "But why mommy?"
• After sticking his finger in unsweetened cocoa powder, putting it in his mouth and nearly gagging, "MOM! Why do you put that yucky stuff in there?"
• After dumping M&M's on the ground for Abbey to eat as I attempt to frantically clean them up and at the same time calmly explain that chocolate will kill a dog, "Why? Is it okay for me to eat chocolate?"

Talk about exhausting. That doesn't even scratch the surface of all the questions he asked. I can appreciate the need for a child this age to ask these questions as part of development, but when you're in the midst of it, it's hard to not lose patience. Needless to say, we finished up that one dessert, I put him down for his nap and rushed to finish the other food before he woke up so I could avoid another 150 question why game. I should have figured he'd wake up and say "Why did you cook without me, mom?" :)

At the end of the day though, I always find myself reflecting that it's actually really funny and sweet to hear him asking these questions. I find a lot of his questions end up getting so far down the "why" tree that it often times leads to conversations about God and how much He loves us. When Micah prays at night now, it's hard for me not to tear up when I hear him say "God, thank you for the trees. Thank you for the sunshine. Thank you for the ducks. Thank you for mommy. Thank you for daddy. Thank you for Katie. Thank you for Abbey. Thank you for trains. Amen."

So all that to say, I suppose I can put up with this stage. I at least need to get used to it since Katie isn't far behind. When I put him to bed tonight, I told him thanks so much for helping me cook today. It was hard to contain my laughter when he responded, "No problem, Mom. Anytime."

What a great time of year!

Thanksgiving is just two days away and I am so excited! Micah and I sat down today to decide what we are going to cook and we went on a grocery shopping date tonight to get all the stuff. He is really into cooking lately. So much so that he wants to make scrambled eggs about every 5 minutes throughout the day. :) We decided we're going to make some of my infamous Strawberry-Kiwi Angel Food Cake dessert (Chris would be upset if we didn't make that), Macaroni and Cheese, Fruit Salad, M&M Brownies, bread rolls, and of course, sweet tea. Mmm. I can't wait.

Chris' family has a tradition of the whole extended family getting together Thanksgiving day. There are usually 75-100 people there. We're having it at his cousin's house out in the country, so there's lots of land for fun stuff. A bouncy house, horse rides, golf cart rides, horse shoes, our tradition of all the women looking through the sales ads for Friday shopping, and of course - TONS of food. That family sure can cook. We then come home for quick naps for the kids and then we head out to my sister's house for Thanksgiving dinner. Again, some great food - my mom's broccoli cheddar cheese casserole is always a must have. A full day of visiting with family, having fun, and lots of great food. It doesn't get much better than that!

One small problem - I've pledged to bring homemade macaroni and cheese to both family events. But, when Micah and I went shopping tonight, we found that the macaroni pasta was completely sold out. Even the generic brands. So, we'll be on a macaroni mission tomorrow for sure.

Nesting?

One of the common signs of the end of a pregnancy for many women is the "nesting" urge. Probably much to the disappointment of Chris, I haven't really had this urge with either of my two kids. I've just had my typical responses to any upcoming event of just feeling like I need to get a lot of different things done. Chris has grown accustomed to my "project list before the baby comes" that I give him during the first 8 weeks of pregnancy. But, those are mostly things for him to do, not me. :)

I think this time might be different, though. I'm not sure what to make of it yet, but I've begun feeling a little overwhelmed with a spring cleaning urge. Last week, I found myself on my hands and knees cleaning the kitchen floor, bleaching the toilets, washing cloths that weren't even dirty, wiping down walls, sorting all of the kids clothing, cleaning out the filing cabinet and shredding papers. ..and that was just in one day. Today I have been searching the entire house for any possible thing we can throw away and was caught on camera by Chris doing touch up painting on the ceiling in our living room.

So, is this nesting? The problem is that I still have 9 weeks left! I'm going to be exhausted if I keep this up for 62 more days. Or, maybe I'm just being affected by this episode of Oprah Chris recorded last week on the topic of hoarding. I'm not an Oprah fan at all (in fact, I'm anything but a fan -- I usually hate that show), but I do have to admit.. if watching that episode doesn't make you want to clean your house and throw a bunch of stuff a way, nothing will.

The Business of Being Born.

Last night I got to attend a screening of a new documentary film produced by Ricki Lake called "The Business of Being Born". The film was about the state of maternity care in the United States with the assertion that it's basically in a state of crisis. Did you know that the current C-Section rate in the US is 33%? That the time of day most C-Sections are performed are statistically 4pm and 10pm? Or that the U.S. has the 2nd highest newborn death rate in the developed world? All of this begs the question... Why?

People forget that hospitals are generally meant to treat illness and that pregnancy and childbirth is not an illness. Don't get me wrong - there are definitely times when a labor will have complications that need to be addressed in a hospital setting. But, on a healthy, normal pregnancy, the percentages of interventions are way out of whack in our country. I've been to a lot of births and the snowball effect of augumentation drugs like pitocin is an all too often occurrance. In a lot of cases, people make decisions about the birth of their child on less information than they would have when they purchase a vehicle. I'm hopeful that this documentary will help encourage moms and dads to find out more information when it comes to the choices they will be presented with in childbirth and that it might open some eyes to a multitude of issues in maternity care in our country.

The film wasn't perfect by any means, but overall it was well done and I believe well intentioned. I've seen a lot of birth videos and I'm excited about this one because it's one of the first main stream films to be produced by someone already in Hollywood and to be shown in public theaters. It is scheduled to be release in January and will be available on Netflix shortly thereafter. Until then, check out this trailer on The Business of Being Born website - http://thebusinessofbeingborn.com/trailer.htm.

Churrascaria.

Yesterday was Chris' birthday! If you don't already know us, you'll find that one of our favorite things to do is eat. So, it was only natural that I plan a week full of good eating for him. I was super excited because I planned a babysitter for two nights this week. We don't get to go out by ourselves much anymore, so I figured two nights in one week would be a real treat (along with the new iPod he very subtley requested).

Another widely known fact about us is that we are very much creatures of habit. We generally eat at a few select places. Some of them an awful lot. But, on a whim... We decided to try something different last night. Everyone is going to think I'm a unsatisfiable patron or something. My past 2 posts have been about bad customer service experiences, and here I go again...

A couple years ago, we were on vacation in Dallas, TX and tried a Texas de Brazil Churrascaria restaurant. It was absolutely incredible. How often do you get to sit at a table while people come around and slice off pieces of perfectly cooked filet mignon, lamb, pork, etc. And they had the most incredible salad bar -- and I don't even eat salad! We recently found out about another Churrascaria restaurant in our area, so we decided to give it a go last night. $40 a plate later, we were very disappointed. It's a locally owned restaurant and it was no where near the caliber of Texas de Brazil. All the meats we received were extremely rare. Not a huge deal if you like rare cooked red meat. But, when even the bacon wrapped turkey is cold and uncooked in the middle, that's a little too rare. There were no vegetable side dishes, only rice and mashed potatoes. We had to wait forever for people to come to our table to bring us meats and it seemed they were running very short on most of the selections. In the end, it probably would have been a decent meal for $15 a plate.

Oh, well.. at least Friday night we'll go back to one of our tried and true favorites - The Melting Pot. Melted cheese, melted chocolate and cheesecake... Mmmm.

Car dealerships stink.

Okay, I'm sure not all of them stink. But, the one we bought our Honda Odyssey from does. Or, at least the Service Department does. We bought our Odyssey about 4 months ago. The day after we bought it, we noticed one of the snaps on one of the floor mats had fallen off. We figured it was no big deal; we'd just call the dealership and have them replace it. I'm proud to say that 4 months later, 5 hours worth of sitting in the waiting room with 2 kids, and at least 30 minutes on the phone, we finally have a fixed floor mat.

We reported the missing snap the week we bought the van. They said they'd order the mat. After a couple months of not hearing anything, I called in to check on the status. The guy told me that they would have received it and sent it back by now because it had been so long. I told him there must be a glitch in their process since I was never notified before they decided to send it back. Duh. So, he said he'd have the mat overnighted and ready for me the next day. I made an oil change appointment and showed up bright and early. Surprise! No floor mat. They're on back order with no ETA. I then have to wait over 3 hours for a silly oil change. The kids were okay for the first hour. By the second, my pregnant self is exhausted and the kids are ansi and tired. They finally finish after 3 1/2 hours and, oops, they forgot to wash the van. The kids were about to melt down, so I just left. The service advisor then has the nerve to call Chris and ask him if we were satisified with our experience. My charming, gentle husband proceeded to give him an earful.

Last week the guy calls Chris again and said they were finally able to get our mat in. Chris said, "Great, when can we come pick it up?" Not that easy. The guy tells Chris we'd have to make an appointment. "To get a floor mat??" You can imagine Chris' surprise. He was nice enough to promise Chris it would only take 45 minutes. Yeah, 45 minutes to get a silly floor mat installed. I show up today thinking the guy had to be off his rocker. I expected maybe all of 5 minutes. Wrong again. An hour and a half later, I have a new floor mat and they've washed the van. The kids are loosing it and the guy has the nerve to ask me, "So, have we successfully changed your mind about our service?" with a big grin on his face like he had worked a service miracle.

Needless to say, we'll be finding another dealership to go to for future service.