Today and yesterday have been pretty darn great. It's weird that Monday and Tuesday I was in a bit of a funk, for no particular reason, and then yesterday and today I have been feeling so cheerful, for no particular reason. Crazy pregnant women.

So yesterday I had my first visit to the chiro, and I can't help but feel like I'm getting scammed. I walked in feeling fine, she popped a few joints, I forked over some money, and I walked out feeling fine. I just have to keep telling myself that it's supposed to be beneficial in the long term. It's nothing against my chiropractor; she's great. She has actually told me twice now how wonderful it is that I'm nursing a two-year-old, and how could you not like someone like that?

Tonight a UPS guy came to the door and dropped off a fabulously fragrant package for me. It was filled with a bunch of stuff from Zum, a local company that makes amazing goat's milk soap and a bunch of other great natural products. Included in the package was soap, of course, a soy candle, some spray mist, and two containers of shea butter body lotion. Wow! It was sent by Steve's dad and his girlfriend, with a little glad-you're-feeling-better-we've-been-thinking -about-you note. How cool was that of them?

And, lastly, here is the very best thing about today. Emma had no nap today so she was sound asleep by 7:00 tonight. Now that I am no longer an exhausted zombie, I can actually stay up longer than her (Last night I was up until after midnight for no other reason than I just didn't want to go to bed - it is so wonderful to be back to myself again! Plus, I've only thrown up twice in the last three days!!!). This means that I have fourish hours to myself to burn my new candle, drink yummy tea, knit, and watch movies. I am ecstatic!!!

Oh, and Steve has been in Florida all week but he comes home tomorrow!

Oh, and one more thing - my midwife is coming tomorrow and I will get to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time!

I am craving some order in my life. Every day there is no telling what time Emma and I will wake up, what time we'll eat, what time she'll nap, etc. I feel like we're just bumbling through each day, and at the end, we've usually done some fun stuff, but haven't really accomplished anything. Often during the days, I find myself with this, "Well, now what do we do?" feeling. I know a wonderful homeschooling family with five kids, and the mom was recently telling me that every morning she gets them up at 7:00, they go to Mass at 8:00, and get back home to start school at 9:00. I don't have anything even close to that kind of organization, and I only have one kid instead of five!

So, I'm going to try this loose schedule for awhile, and see how it goes.

8:30 Wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast, throw in a load of laundry, pick up the house.
10:30 Go on a walk or to the park.
12:00 Lunch.
12:30 Naptime.
3:00 Cook something together, do a craft, or go somewhere fun.
5:00 Pick up the house.

Here are some pictures from the pumpkin patch yesterday.

I got zero cleaning done today. So far my one-room-a-day plan is a flop. I purposely kept Emma from taking a nap in hopes that she would go to bed early and I could have my evening free to clean. Now it's 7:00 and she's asleep. Unfortunately, I am so exhausted and have such a terrible headache that I am going to bed as well.

Oh, we did have a fun trip to the pumpkin patch, so I will try to post some pics of that tomorrow.

Our house is always so messy, and I'm sick of it! This week I am deep cleaning one room every day, so by the end of the week we should have a clean house. I've done this before, with plans to keep up with just one room every day, but somehow it never works out. Like a week and a half into it, the house is always trashed again. I think I've had all the mess and clutter I can stand, so maybe this is the time I will stick with it. Today I started with cleaning out my car - not technically a room, but needed a good cleaning nevertheless. I actually cleaned out my trunk, and its contents filled up two entire trash bags. There were still books and papers from college in there, and an unopened box of Pop Tarts (blech!) that expired in 2002!

Last night Steve was working late and I desperately wanted to take a relaxing bath by myself. I'd gotten some fun bath salts from Wild Oats and I was looking forward to using them. Emma and I have been going to bed at the same time for the past few months, but I'm not feeling as exhausted now so I decided to try to get her to sleep first so I could enjoy my bath. We sat here at the computer for so long, and she wasn't even close to falling asleep. I was getting exasperated with her, and at one point, after I told her pretty firmly to lay still, she scrunched up her adorable little face and said sternly, "You knock it off, fuzzball!" I have no idea where she got that, but I giggled at it, and now I am officially Fuzzball Mommy and Steve is Fuzzball Papa. And, in case you're wondering, I got too hungry and too tired to wait for her to go to sleep so we both got up, had a snack, and then went to bed together. Steve is working again tonight, so perhaps Emma and I will just enjoy my bath salt together. Someday I really will be able to take a bath by myself. At least I hope.

I am a little bummed. Today was supposed to be our second midwife appointment, and Steve was going to come home early for it, then take the rest of the day off. Unfortunately, my midwife called this morning and said she couldn't make it today. So now Steve's not coming home early, and my appoinment is moved to next week and Steve won't be able to make it to that one. Poo.

In happier news, my brother recently auditioned for a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (a wonderful play and, in my opinion, Andrew Lloyd Weber's best work), and he actually got the lead part, which is (obviously) Joseph. I think he has surprised us all by actually being able to sing! Before he tried out, my mom said if he did get the part of Joseph, then they might need me to sew him a coat. I've been worried about that ever since, and wondering how in the world I'd ever be able to come up with something like this. The good news is that yesterday I found out that I will not, in fact, have to sew the coat. Whew!

Emma amazed me today by putting this difficult puzzle together all by herself. She was very proud and asked that I take her picture.

I have come up with a plan for what to make my family for Christmas this year. It should be fun, and hopefully much less tedious those eight pair of pants I sewed for everyone last year. Sadly, I can't reveal what I'm making because just about everyone in my family reads this blog, but just know that I will be knitting busily on these items from now until Christmas.

Today is dreary and I am having a sick, pukey day. Emma and I are both still wearing our pajamas. I imagine we will hurry up and get dressed when I know Steve is on his way home, so we can at least give the outward appearance of not having been lazy and useless all day. We are, however, having a nice time watching movies and reading lots of books.

The other night for dinner, I warmed up some brisket that I had previously cooked and frozen. For some reason it turned into a stringy mess, much more like spaghetti than beef. (I always seem to be saying "for some reason" when I'm talking about things I've cooked. Does anyone else experience as many cooking mysteries as me?) Steve and Emma had fun playing with the stringy stuff. Here they are sporting a couple of brisket mustaches.

Emma and I had a great time at my mom's house. We stayed an extra day because I didn't want to drive back in the rain on Sunday. She cried and cried when we left, then thankfully fell asleep in the car. She woke up a couple hours later, and we stopped to walk around and buy a snack. Back in the car, she munched contentedly on pretzels for a bit, then remembered she wanted to be back at grandma's house. The rest of the trip was filled with her crying and sadly whimpering, "Go back to grandma's house, peeeeeeeeeeeease." Poor Emma. That pic is of her and my dad riding one of their horses. She is so brave!

Good news! Two of my friends from my local AP group offered to loan us some of their bigger diapers. Now we don't have to use yucky disposables anymore! Thanks, Allison and Jaime!

On my to-do list for today: cleaning, laundry, baking pumpkin bread, trip to the grocery store, trip to the library, some scrapbooking, and hopefully some knitting. As I type that out, it seems I might be a little over-optimistic. Maybe I'll nix the cleaning!

Emma's diapers have been leaving red marks on her legs, and she has been complaining about them hurting her. Sadly, she has outgrown them. Yesterday I packed away all her beautiful cloth diapers, feeling glad that I will be able to break out my cloth diaper stash again in six months or so. After I packed them away, I went in her room and remembered that yesterday we put diapers on all her dolls and stuffed animals. I'm going to leave those on until Emma takes them off so I can still feel a little bit of the cloth love whenever I see them. The worst part about this is, I am not going to buy or sew a whole new set in the next size up, since (hopefully) she'll be potty learning soon. I hate using disposable diapers, and I feel guilty every time I throw one away, but that's really our only option now. Now I have a real reason to hope she gets busy using that potty!

Emma and I are leaving today to go to my mom's in St. Louis for the weekend. Steve was supposed to go with us, but at the last minute decided he is too buried in work to take the weekend off. I am sad about this, mostly because I was looking forward to six hours of knitting time on the drive. Instead, now I just have six hours of driving, which is not nearly as fun. Quite the opposite, in fact.

I have a decision to make. I really want to (and my midwife wants me to) see a chiropractor for the rest of my pregnancy to cut down on back problems, etc., but mostly to help my chances of having a successful VBAC. I've found a wonderful one and have seen her twice this week for an evaluation, and then to hear the plan she's laid out for my care. The problem is that our insurance, which is usually pretty stellar, is ending up being pretty useless in this case, and it's still going to cost us $600. I've never seen a chiro before, but I've heard so many wonderful things from other people. And I really, really want a VBAC and this will apparently help my chances. So what to do? I'm supposed to let her know by tomorrow, and I'm leaning towards going ahead with it. Still, $600 would buy a lot of yarn, or fabric, or slings, or anything else I like to buy.

My dogs are so weird. They will eat anything and everything they can get into their little chops. Yesterday Emma and I dyed pasta with food coloring, then glued it on construction paper. We went out to dinner last night and left our artwork on the table. When we got home, we discovered that the dogs apparently couldn't resist eating the colored, glue-caked, dry pasta. This picture used to be a (somewhat creepy) face, but thanks to those little scavengers, is no more.













Oh, man. I was just sitting here feeling hungry and icky, but not wanting to eat anything that I know we have in the kitchen. I went to get the mail and discovered a package from my mom, dad, and little brother. It's filled with pictures and candy and, best of all, homemade chocolate chip cookies. My family is the coolest-and they have impeccable timing!

I am absolutely elated today. This is the best I've felt, with no Zofran or anything. I actually have energy! It's wonderful! Also, the weather today is perfectly chilly and fabulous. Emma and I went for a walk and spent a long time at the park. I am SO ready for fall that it almost annoys me when the temperature still gets into the 80's most days. Anyhow, today the temperature today is perfect!

To celebrate my feeling better, I got out my knitting stuff. Sadly, I haven't knit a single stitch in over a month due to just generally feeling gross. For some reason, I don't have much motivation to work on the blankets I was knitting, so now I have the fun task of deciding on something new to knit. Hmmm...something for Emma, something for the new baby, or something for ME...how to choose? Maybe something for each of us!

And, Katie, here is a belly pic for you. My belly is just starting to pooch out enough that it makes me looks chubby in my regular clothes, but I tried on some maternity clothes yesterday and I looked ridiculous. What am I going to wear for the next few weeks? I guess you're looking at it - sweats.

We've had Emma's potty sitting out for several months now, and we got her some big girl panties that she is free to wear whenever she wants. I don't make a big deal out of it, because I don't want to stress myself, and her, out over this issue. Plus everyone says, "Wait until they're ready. One day it just clicks and then it'll only take a day or two." So, what I'm wondering is, when is that blasted day going to arrive? Other than one chance accident almost a year ago, she has never peed in the potty. She loves to sit on it immediately after she pees in her diaper, which is obviously futile. Almost every morning she wakes up with a completely dry diaper, but when I ask her if she wants to sit on the potty, she says no. When I ask her during the day, "Do you need to pee in the potty?", she'll say, "Not yet!" Today, after returning from running errands, I asked her if she wanted to go. She said "I go in four minutes." So, fourish minutes later I asked again. Her response? "I go on Saturday." Hmmm...I guess we'll see.

Yesterday we went to the children's farmstead because Steve was doing some volunteer stuff there through his work. Emma and I had lots of fun while Steve was busy working.

Emma and I hit the garage sales this morning to look for maternity clothes. Trouble is, where there are maternity clothes, there are baby/toddler clothes, and I have a severe weakness for cute, cheap clothes for Emma. While I did find a few things for myself, Emma is the one who really scored.

After the garage saling, we stopped at Mimi's Cafe to eat. I was hoping I could order Egg's Benedict, my favorite breakfast in the whole world, and actually enjoy eating something for a change. I was about half way through it, when I bit down on the teeniest piece of eggshell, and lost everything. We were about as far away from the bathroom as possible, so my only other option (other than throwing up right there on the floor) was to sprint outside and puke on the landscaping in front of the building. Lovely. I was so embarassed. And then of course I couldn't bear to eat the rest of my breakfast. Sigh.

Steve has been in Houston all this week, but he returned last night. I am absolutely overjoyed to have him back home. Now maybe someone can clean up the kitchen. (And by that I mean him.)

I think the Zofran was wearing off. Yesterday the general all day ickiness was back, as well as the puking. Today I decided to skip the Zofran, and so far, so good.

Yesterday evening Emma and I unpacked all the fall clothes that I bought for her at garage sales this summer. It is admittedly a ridiculous amount of clothes for a two year old, but at least she really, really, really seems to like them. For every item that I lifted out of the boxes, her eyes would light up and she'd exclaim, "I put on THAT cute outfit!" So, since she really did try on every single thing, the whole process took us several hours. We had a lot of fun. Today, though, she was having so much trouble deciding what to wear from all her "new" stuff, that after twenty minutes of pulling things out and then deciding against them, she eventually gave up and is hanging out in her diaper. Too much pressure, I guess.

And, because certain people are harrassing me about the lack of pictures of Emma lately, here are a couple I took today.

Emma and I were planning to go to my parents' house for a few days, but I decided against it at the last minute. Some things came up and it turns out they weren't even going to be home that much, plus I really wasn't looking forward to the drive. The worst thing about not going is poor Emma was so disappointed. She already had her suitcase packed. :(

I am so excited about autumn - my favorite time of year! I love the crisp, cool weather and all the fun, pumpkin-patchy stuff to do. Drinking hot tea, wearing sweaters, carving pumpkins...I can't wait! I almost included raking leaves in that list, but given my irrational and intense fear of snakes and the number of snakes who reside in our yard, there will be no leaf raking done by me.

Actually, yesterday I was supposed to mow the grass because I had made a deal with Steve and promised that I'd do it. My first time around, of course there was a snake. I sat there, frozen, on the mower until Steve walked over and asked why I stopped. I tried to back out of the deal, but he was like, "Sarah, you are sitting ON THE MOWER. I promise you, there is NO WAY those snakes can get to you." So on I went. Two more loops around, and there was another, bigger, snake. I put the mower in reverse, backed up to the house, and ran inside. No more mowing for me. Maybe I should go get hypnosis or something to rid me of this snake phobia so that I can start actually hanging out in my own backyard. Hmmm...I wonder if that really works?

I am feeling MUCH better. That Zofran is amazing. Yesterday I actually had an appetite, and I didn't throw up once! When Steve got home from work we went out for Mexican, then took Emma to the mall to play in the play area. It's so nice to feel like a real person again! Today I'm even planning on going to Whole Foods, and buying food so we can actually have real meals here again. Hooray!

Emma is so cute! Lately we've been working on matching letters with words, like E-Emma, M-Mommy, etc. She'll find some random letter, come to me and yell, for example, "U-umbrella!". Afterwards she'll look so proud of herself and exclaim, "I'm a GENUS!" No self-confidence issues there, I guess!

The little genius is going with Steve today to one of his dad's car shows. I've been to those in the past, so thankfully I know enough to opt out of this one. Standing around discussing the curve of a certain tail light is not my idea of a fun way to spend a Saturday. Emma, however, has no idea how lame they are so she is excited to go. And I am excited to have several hours to do with as I please. Woo-hoo!