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Things that happened this week that I totally forgot to blog about because, hot damn, y’all, I am TIRED.

1. My brother and sister came over from Charlotte last weekend to hang out. That was fun, even though I completely forgot to take any pictures whatsoever.

2. Everyone (my brother, my sister, and my mom) went back to their respective homes on Sunday. We were very sad about that. Or at least, Catie and I were sad; Lucy honestly didn’t seem to notice much.

3. I survived 48 hours on solo parent duty with a four year-old and a newborn.

That probably seems like nothing to some people, but for me, it felt like a pretty major accomplishment.

4. Dave got back from England on Tuesday evening. Thank God.

5. Also on Tuesday: I started back to work. And Lucy turned 6 weeks old.

Whaaa? Where does the time go?

6. I moved Lucy to her crib, because she’s such a light sleeper that she wakes up if I so much as roll over or clear my throat. I thought maybe we might all get some more sleep that way. She’s spent the last 2 nights in her crib, and it’s been semi-successful. She’s gone from sleeping 2.5 hours at a time to sleeping 3 hours at a time, so… yay? I guess? I’ll celebrate once she’s consistently sleeping 4+ hours at a time. (Soon. Please, God, let it be soon.)

7. I’m finally starting to feel the post-partum crazies set in. I know that it’s just the accumulation of several weeks’ worth of exhaustion, and it’s all stuff that will pass as soon as I get some rest. But this has not been my best week, to put it mildly.

8. We have no plans this weekend, and I am so looking forward to that. I might not get out of my pajamas until Monday.

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Last night, I was walking from the living room back into the kitchen, when Dave sort of looked at me sideways.

Dave: “So… Has anyone at work asked you if you’re pregnant yet?”

Me: “Nope.”

Dave: “Well then, they’re obviously just being polite, because, DAMN.”

Uh.. thank you, my love?

Here’s the thing: the office where I work? Is almost entirely male. And the guys are all nerds, which means they’re overall a relatively shy bunch, and I’m pretty sure they’d rather die than risk offending me by asking if I’m pregnant.

So, you know what? Fine. Let them wonder if maybe I just went balls-out nuts with the holidays treats this year. I’m not that bothered by it.

But something that has been bothering me, is the fact that my maternity clothes don’t fit me very well. My starting weight when I got pregnant with Catie was 20 pounds lighter than this time, so my old maternity clothes are mostly too tight, too short, or I feel like my boobs are going to fall out of them. (And don’t get me wrong, I don’t have giant pregnant hooters now. I’m just not used to having anything, so actually filling out a B cup is sort of mind-blowing to me.)

[Random aside: I was wearing one of the shirts that makes me feel extra cleavage-y the other day when I was helping Catie get dressed. I leaned over to help her get her pants on, and she put her hand on my chest and said, "I like your boobs, Mommy." I was sort of dumbstruck for a response, but finally I said, "Thanks. Me too."]

Since I worked crazy overtime hours yesterday, I decided to make up for it by taking off a little early today, and I headed to the mall to try to find some maternity clothes that fit me.

So, yeah. I think I might be showing a bit?

The crazy thing is that at my doctor’s appointment last week, the scale said I’d only gained two pounds so far. I don’t understand how a belly that large can only account for two measly pounds, and lord knows I have not been making any effort whatsoever at maintaining a healthy diet or exercise plan with this pregnancy. So I guess stuff must be redistributing itself from other parts of my body, but damned if I know.

But if this is how large I look at 19 weeks, I’m terrified to think of how huge I’m going to be in about three months from now!

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I don’t really want to write about how I’m siiiiick and I don’t feeeel good, but yeah, that’s basically what’s going on here. I went to the doctor on Wednesday and got some (pregnancy-safe) antibiotics, so I’m starting to feel a little better. Hooray for that.

I honestly would’ve gone to the office today, except I still have these frequent coughing fits (thank you, bronchitis!), and that just seems sort of rude when you sit in an open cubicle environment, no? I mean, the guy who trims his fingernails in his cubicle makes me want to claw my eyeballs out of my face, so I imagine that this whole lung-hacking noise that I make every few minutes would be, uh, somewhat distracting for my co-workers, to put it mildly. Anyway, I have a remote desktop connection to my office PC, so I’m still getting all of my work done, even though I’m not physically there. It’s fine.

So! Onto other stuff:
1.) Tomorrow we’re taking Catie to see “Toy Story 3 on Ice.” None of us have ever been to an ice show, so that should be exciting. I’m curious to see if the ice show makes me weep like the movie does. (And remembering how Catie tends to get anxious in crowded theaters, just like her dad, I bought nosebleed seats way in the back. Which is actually kind of lucky, since it’ll also ensure that I’ll be far enough away that I won’t distract any ice skaters with my hacking cough.)

2.) In the spirit of good-behavior motivation, my sister bought us The Elf on The Shelf. I know it’s really popular and a lot of parents say that their kids love it (and I appreciate the gift – THANK YOU, TRACY!), but… does anyone else find it creepy? The whole “there’s a dead-eyed elf doll watching everything you do & reporting it back to Santa while you’re asleep” thing? And then he’s in a different location every day? I admit that I have issues with dolls (that most recent episode of “Hoarders” where the woman had collected over 5,000 porcelain dolls? I’m going to have nightmares about that house for the rest of my life). And I tend to think elves are a little creepy too. So combine the two and make an elf doll? That’s basically a potential horror movie to me.

Catie likes the book a lot, but she seems a little bit scared of the elf himself. I’m going to see how it goes the next couple of days, but if she continues to be nervous about the elf, I think Santa Claus is going to be short-staffed and have to call some of the elves back to the North Pole to help make toys, and our elf is going to go away. Christmas is supposed to be all about fun and magic, not anxiety-provoking or scary.

And for the record, when I described it to my mom, she had the same “NO NO NO THAT IS CREEPY AS HELL” reaction that I did. So maybe there’s a genetic link there with the elf doll thing.

3.) It’s been really nice having my mother-in-law here this week, especially while I’ve been sick. Catie goes to climb in bed with Grandma first thing in the morning, rather than coming to see me or Dave, so it’s nice to have a little reprieve. Plus, my MIL has been making dinner every night, so that’s been fabulous, just to have one less thing to worry about.

4.) It’s freaking cold here this week, way colder than a typical North Carolina December (although, to be fair, it’s only our third winter in this state, and we spent most of last December in England). It kinda makes me wish I were in Las Vegas with some of my favorite people right now, but alas. Pregnant ladies with tight Christmas budgets don’t get weekends in Vegas. Oh well. Maybe next time.

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So, about this? The track record remains unbroken. Add to the list:

2010 – The year that Dave and I both got sinus infections. AGAIN.

Dave is mostly over his version of The Plague now, but I’m smack in the middle of it. I can’t breathe, I’m constantly sneezing and coughing, my throat hurts, and I’ve lost my voice. Fabulous.

Also? Knowing that a giant bottle of DayQuil is sitting right there in my kitchen cabinet, and knowing that if I took it, I’d undoubtedly feel better, but being unable to take it because it’s contraindicated for pregnancy? That sucks extra hard.

Dave got my laptop set up with a VPN client so I can connect to my work computer and still get some work done. So that’s what I’m doing, lying in bed with my laptop on a TV tray, and trying to concentrate on work. It’s awfully reminiscent of the last time I was pregnant, and not in a good way. At least this time it’s just a sinus thing that I know will probably be over in a few days, and not some Unknown Pooping Disorder that will rob me of all of my energy reserves (and a hell of a lot of muscle tone too). So, um, silver lining, I guess?

Another silver lining is that my mother-in-law is here, and she’s planning to make shepherd’s pie for dinner tonight. Comfort food = WIN.

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Two major topics I didn’t mention in yesterday’s post:

* Despite the fact that we waited for what feels like AGES for this baby, the timing with my new job could be better. For those of you keeping track, I applied for this job back in August (before I got pregnant), and I found out that I was pregnant sometime around my third interview. Then they waited another five weeks to actually hire me. So I started working here when I was already 10 weeks pregnant. And I’ve been praying that nobody would figure it out right away, and that they’d think I’m chubby with an unfortunate way of carrying my extra weight around my mid-section. But I’m already mostly in maternity clothes, so I think it’s going to be really obvious very soon.

(This is the burden of having a short torso. Nowhere to expand except outward.)

I mean, I just didn’t want to walk in here on Day One and be like, “Hey, thanks for the job and all, but BTW I’m gonna need some maternity leave in a few months.” It seemed… tacky. I wanted to establish myself as a valuable employee first. So, I’m working on trying to figure out a graceful way to handle that one. Obviously, this is not my first time at this particular rodeo, so it’s not like I’m going to be quitting when the baby arrives. I know that I still want to (need to) work, so I just need to make sure I explain that very clearly to my manager when I tell him.

(Oh, that’s the other weird part. My manager is based in the Colorado office, so he has no idea what I look like. I could theoretically wait until a week before my due date to say anything. I mean, I won’t do that, because that would be horrible. But I probably could get away with it.)

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* Catie is pretty aware of what’s going on now. We’ve talked about how she’s going to be a big sister “someday,” since it’s hard to explain timelines to an almost-4 year-old. I tried telling her it’ll be next summer, but I don’t know if she understands that or not.

I showed her the ultrasound pictures from yesterday and explained that it was her baby sister and that the doctor took a picture of her in my tummy (she found her own ultrasound pics once and I explained to her that it was a picture of her before she was born, so she’s familiar with that). I told her that it’s going to be a long time before the baby is here, and my tummy is going to get reeeeeally big in the meantime. She said, “Wow, I’m so excited to see a picture of my baby sister! [3-second pause] Mommy, can I play with Daddy’s iPad?” So… yeah. I’m not sure how much she really understands about this whole thing.

But she IS excited to help me decorate the spare room. So there’s that.

Oh, also? Now I really, really, REALLY want my parents to hurry up and sell their house to move up here. I’m going to need their help more than ever, no doubt. Anybody need to buy a 4-bedroom/2-bath house in Ridgeland, Mississippi? Anyone?

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Catie’s latest obsession is Scooby-Doo. One would think that the excessive amount of monsters, ghosts, etc., would be too much for your average 3 year-old, but apparently that’s not the case for her. I’m pretty sure that in the past couple of weeks, I’ve watched more episodes of Scooby-Doo than I ever did in my all of my childhood years combined.

It’s gotten to the point that I was trying to think of toys for Santa Claus to bring Catie, this action figure set was the first thing I thought of for her. Since she’s already working the names Shaggy and Velma into her imaginative play, I have a hunch that she’s going to flip out over it.

Incidentally, that’s about as far as I’ve gotten with my Christmas shopping and planning. Hmm. I should probably work on that, shouldn’t I?

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This weekend I got Catie all dressed up and took her to our town’s community park, which has a gorgeous lake and some really great views, and I tried to get pictures of her for our Christmas card. (It also helps that we’re having the most vibrant fall I think I’ve ever seen, the colors of the leaves are absolutely amazing.) I got some pictures that I thought were really great, played around with some Christmas card layouts, and ran them past my mom and sister to see what they thought. My mom said that she thought Catie was doing a “fake smile” in every picture and that I needed to re-do the whole thing. I think my mom needs to put down the crack pipe if she thinks I’m going to go through that whole process all over again.

(And for the record: I DON’T think she’s fake-smiling in most of the pictures. Sure, she’s not belly-laughing, but she was happy, and the smiles were real. So there.)

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I’m trying to get in the habit of doing all my chores on the weekend so that I don’t have to worry about them during the week, but it’s hard. I know that eventually we’ll find out groove, but in the meantime, OOF. I seem to forget about a lot of things until Sunday afternoon, then there’s this whole panic of trying to get everything done at the last minute. It’s a weird trade-off: my weekends are busy and semi-stressful, but in exchange, it means that my time at home during the week is pretty chilled out and easy. Eh, I guess it works.

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On the topic of weekend chores: One of the things that drives me insane is that Catie leaves her toys all over the family room, strewn everywhere. Now, it’d probably make more sense to just clean up the small mess she’s made each day, but I’m always tired at night and I forget about it at the time. Then by the time the weekend hits, I’m ready to scream from all of the clutter. The problem is, she’s only 3, so when I tell her to clean up her stuff, she just kind of stands there and stares at it. She can’t seem to figure out what to do first. (Actually, Dave has the same problem, so maybe it has nothing to do with her age and everything to do with genetics.) I don’t mind helping her, but I also want her to learn how to clean up her own messes. It’s part of that whole “teaching your kid to be self-sufficient” thing, which I consider to be a big part of my job as a parent.

But, I think I’ve figured out a way to work with her on this. I tell her that we’re going to have a Clean-Up Race. I set the timer on the microwave for five minutes, and we both work on picking up all of her toys. Whoever cleans up the most stuff in 5 minutes (hint: it’s always the kid, never the grown-up) is the winner, and gets a piece of candy. In Catie’s case, that’s a York peppermint patty, which is her favorite treat on earth.

And bonus points: the two times we’ve done this Clean-Up Race, we’ve gotten the entire family room clean before the 5-minute timer beeped. Love that. Chores that can be done quickly and effectively? WIN.

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There’s some other stuff going on with us right now, but this entry is getting way too long, so it’ll have to wait until later this week. (I know, you’re like, DYING of anticipation, aren’t you? Heh.)

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Apparently the whole “working mom guilt” thing has officially kicked in. On Friday afternoon, I realized around 4:45 that I was going to have to stay late at work to finish a couple of quick things that needed to be done before the weekend. The only problem was that Dave and I had carpooled to the office together, so he was basically stuck, waiting around for me.

We left at 5:30, and I was thinking it’d be ok, but then we got stuck in HORRIBLE “it’s Friday so everyone is commuting home at the same damn time” traffic. And I panicked, because daycare closes at 6:00, and we were obviously not going to make it there on time. I had images in my head of Catie as the last kid there, crying and asking where her Mommy and Daddy were. I almost lost it on that drive.

(Aside: I’ve mentioned before that my parents are currently trying to sell their house and move up here, right? My mom keeps talking about how great it’ll be that they’ll be around to help out with Catie when we need them. At some point when we were stuck in traffic and not moving, I said to Dave, “Ok, you know what? I need my parents here like RIGHT NOW, TODAY.” Because it sure would’ve made my life easier if I could’ve called my mom at 4:45 and been like, “oh hey, I have to work late, could you pick up Catie?” Problem solved. So I really need someone to hurry up and buy their damn house so they can move here already!)

We got to daycare at 6:05 – not horrible, but we’re still going to have to pay extra for that 5 minutes (I forget how much, I think they charge you a dollar per minute that you’re late). I ran in, and it turned out that the teacher who had stayed with Catie happens to be the mom of one of the kids in her class. So Catie was having a great time, because it was just her and her friend, getting to tear the place up all by themselves. I apologized all over the place, and hustled Catie out to the car.

As soon as she was buckled into the car, she asked if we could go to Chick-Fil-A for dinner. And you know, I didn’t have any big meal plans at home, plus I was already feeling like the Worst Mommy Ever, so sure, why not? Dave didn’t feel well (I think he got carsick from my maniacal “AAAHHH get me to daycaaaaaare!” driving), so we dropped him off at the house, then headed over to Chick-Fil-A. Catie ate her dinner, then I let her play in the enclosed play area for about 45 minutes. She had a blast.

After that, we went to Target so I could buy her “Toy Story 3″ on DVD. Because I am a sucker. Also because I loved that movie. Of course, she demanded to watch it as soon as we got home. I thought (wrongly) that she’d fall asleep on the couch during the movie, but she didn’t, and so she finally went to bed sometime after 11:00. Ugh.

(For the record, she seemed totally unaffected by the lack of sleep. Can’t say the same for me and Dave, though.)

The thing that sucks is that we had a really great weekend overall – we went to my cousin’s house for their annual Guy Fawkes Day party on Saturday night, I took her to the movies to see “Megamind” on Sunday, we had a blast together. I just hate how that one thing on Friday night made me feel so terrible that I spent the rest of the weekend feeling like I was trying to make it up to her. Even though she didn’t seem that bothered by it. That Mommy Guilt is a killer, I tell you.

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