Weepy

For days now I have had this...well it can only be described as weepy. Anything and everything could very easily cause the tears to engage and the heart to beat at a heavy aching pace. I am emotional over commercials, tiny moments with my kids, seemingly "harmless" conversations with my husband. He continues to watch the smallest changes in my face to determine wether now is a good time to talk to me about weekend plans, work updates, or baby excitement. Three pregnancies with me has molded him into a cautious, overprotective, and gentle husband. I sure love that man! Its almost over honey!
But here is what I've decided...these symptoms of pregnancy: overly emotional, weepiness, nesting, fits of frustration are only a "symptom" because thats the natural resulting response when you take a perfectly capable, independent, attractive woman and turn her life upside down. You add 20-40 extra pounds on her already (not so perfect) body. This weight affects not just her self esteem but her ability to move and maintain her life as she knew it. Suddenly everything from the waste down can't be cleaned the way she'd like, the tiny McDonalds toys escape her practiced hand because well she can't bend down that far! But its not just the things below that confound her now. No! The things above her head, for instance cupboards...her belly actually shortens her reach now too! And forget grabbing a stool to get to the rarely used food dehydrator. The stool will be her demise if she risks her unevenly proportioned self on top of the tiny pedestal. And thats just the house cleaning overview. What about chasing after toddler children? Forget it....its not happening. Here is where the fits of frustration enter. She has lost her temper and her sanity...and her kids in terror slowly and cautiously approach what is usually their mom. Then the weepiness begins...guilt....oh the guilt! "Mommy just doesn't feel good and its not your fault. I'm sorry mommy scared you! Please don't run away from scarey mommy again!" Yeah right! And then that process repeats over and over again as that belly gets bigger and she finds herself limited even more. Until, like myself, she is reduced to mostly weepy because all the things she used to take pride in: her appearance, her ability to organize her home, to clean her home, her ability to be a good mom, a good wife, are not only compromised they seem completely gone! So doctors you call it a symptom, I call it a big mean trick! Thank heavens that within the first year of the new babies life you regain all those things again. Just takes time.

94 Years of Livin...Why am I in such a hurry??

As most of you know I am very pregnant right now and had to quit work as a precaution because of my unpredictable dizzy spells. These dizzy spells have interrupted a number of plans and goals I've had and have been a great source of irritation for me. Somedays they don't seem to happen at all and then other days its constant. So I've learned some tricks that help me cope. The most important of these (and the most often overlooked)is SLOW DOWN! How many times have I learned that being in a hurry makes the dizziness worse...I run out of breath... my body really can't go that fast right now and yet I still continue to push it. The phone rings I feel this urgency to answer it...why? So I don't get to it in time, isn't that why I have an answering machine. I wake up in the morning and take inventory of my wreck of a house and panic...."there is so much to do today I better hurry!" I tell myself. Does it all need to be done today? Is it so urgent that every dish is done by 10am ? If I do meet that goal by noon will they still be done??? Nope. So why the hurry?? So much of what I am in a hurry for is classified under general maintenance... which logic would tell you will always require you to maintain it...it can never be described as done. My nesting tendency has also kicked in a great deal much to my husbands amusement (and I'll be honest occasionally his irritaion as well) I feel this need to clean and organize the utensil drawer. Organize my kids dresser drawer and I hear this clock ticking in my head counting down the seconds until this wonderful baby will be here and I want it all to be done before she comes. Done! Not possible is it. What is the worst that can happen if I haven't cleaned behind the bunk beds? A number of socks will be missing their mates and the stale popcorn back their will continue its process of decay. But the funny thing is they'll be there no matter when I get to that. In a year those socks will still be there if I can't manage to get to it now. What is my hurry? I decided to repeat, as a montra, what I learned from working in a nursing home "Actually life is really long!" That doesn't mean procrastinate what you can do, but lighten up on the things you can't get to yet....life is long! So I got curious "How long?" I looked it up here at http://www.livingto100.com/ and answered some pretty easy questions and found out I'm expected to live to 94! I'm going to turn 28 in a week...I've got 66 years to get to that stale popcorn...easy does it Rachel....slow and steady wins the race!