Everybody slept soundly last night. Nobody woke me up coughing. Nobody cried. Nobody came into my room at 3am staring at me.

I slept well, for about 5 hours, only waking up to pee.

It could have been bliss.

However, I woke up this morning feeling less than rested.
Whatever congestion I had over the weekend has now taken over my entire head.
And while I hate to give in and admit it, I think its fair to say that I’m sick.

My ears hurt. My face hurts. My eyes hurt. My jaw hurts.
My gums even hurt.

I feel like my head is in labor.

I was supposed to take Kait to her orthodontist appointment today. However, as important as it is for her to get the next two appointments in before the baby is born, I just can’t do it today.

She’s not going to be happy about it, but she’ll understand.
She’s sweet like that.

And, this first day I’m considered full term, this first day I could have this baby and it not be considered a risk…
I don’t even want to.

Not everything is horrible right now though, and I have to say that there is a bright spot in this morning.
There is much to be thankful for.

I’m not in the car.

There are very few things that bother me more than being in the car.
Being in the car for 5 hours when I’m 37 weeks pregnant is definitely worse though.
And children vomiting in the middle of the night.

No, we have no vomiters right now, but if we did I’d probably rather be in the car.

I think.

Right now we are coming down to the tail end of a 5 hour car ride and I just want to be done RIGHTNOW!

But we still have some 20 miles to go and I’m feeling quite impatient.
Part of this is because I have to pee really bad. The other part is that I just really, really detest car rides.

I tried closing my eyes and clicking my heels. We’re still in the car.
And my behind is screaming at me to get off it already!

I don’t sound whiny do I? I hate sounding whiny.

But not as much as I hate being in the car.
Hate is a strong word, I know. I’m only using it because I really mean it.

Jesse started crying. This means I will possibly be playing peekaboo for the next 20 minutes.

Because listening to a crying child when I’m in the car at 37 weeks pregnant when I have to pee and my behind hurts will likely send me over the edge.

Where’s Jesse?
AH! There he is!

Yeah, this is going to get really old really fast.

Today was spent wiping little noses, reminding small children to cover their mouths when they cough, and delivering benadryl in small doses.

Either we all got colds at the same time or we’re simply allergic to something in this area.
I think it’s the latter because the whole thing started right as we rolled into town yesterday.

But maybe not.

All that matters right now is that I’m up because my most dramatic child’s nose is completely stuffed. And he’s in the room with me. And I can’t sleep through his dramatically enhanced sniffle attempts and other saliva noises.

I have sensory issues lately. Every unusual noise irkes me for some reason.

I gave dramatic child some allergy medicine and am now waiting for it to kick in so we can both go back to sleep.

So I wait.
Up late at night when I could be sleeping.
Certainly waking a number of others up with my stern demand to dramatic child that, You’d better quiet down right now!! You’ll wake everybody else up! To which his uncontrollable sobs turn to outright cries because he’s half asleep and is quite unsure exactly where he is.
Scrounging around the living room and kitchen for tissues and measuring devices in my own half asleep stupor. The more quiet I try to be the louder I am.

How can somebody you love so very much make you feel so completely nuts?
And I am suddenly reminded again of my need for God because there is no patience without Him.

There is not one other area of my life, I think, that God has used to my benefit more than His making me a mother.

It’s like a fire that is constantly on the verge of burning me.
And I don’t think God always puts out the fire for me, I think He more helps acclimate me to the higher temperatures.

Because it is this same fire that keeps me warm. I don’t want it to go out.
Not ever.

This is mommyhood.
And it drives me crazy.
And it is so completely good in every way.

Even at 1:43 am.
Especially at 1:43am.

F11

Yay!

Thanks to Genevieve, my somewhat long time cyber friend, who is amazing.

Having trouble understanding this post? You may want to read this one first.

Little Boy Cat doesn’t normally use a litter box.  We have a litter box, he just doesn’t use it.

Don’t get grossed out now.  He actually meows at the back door when he needs to do his business.  It’s way better than having a stinky box in the house so this is how we do it now.

This really has very little to do with this post.
Actually, it has absolutely nothing to do with this post.

This morning we realized that we would need litter for the litter box that we have but don’t use while we are gone out of town for two days.  Ryan and I told the kids to be ready to go immediately when we got back.

They weren’t. But they had a reason.

When we got back from the store they were in the middle of trapping a brown widow spider in a giant pickle jar.  A brown widow spider who had made herself a cozy little home under our coffee table. 

Our coffee table that we keep in the house.  The one we use every day.  The one I was sitting in front of earlier.

I’m sure I have been two inches from death numerous times in the recent week.

I think it’s time we push for an exterminator in an extreme sort of way.  Florida’s laws on pests in the home fall in favor of the renter.  The home owner has to make sure our home is free of things like carpenter ant infestations, silverfish in our cupboards, and poisonous spider habitats under our coffee table.

We were in such a hurry to get out of dodge that I didn’t get a picture of the 8 legged beast of a gal before Ryan took her outside and gave her a good talking to about being in our home. 
There was mashing involved.

He wasn’t gentle.

We still managed to get on the road in really good time – thanks to my kids who didn’t freak out when they found the spider, but got to work jarring her instead.  They have a very different reaction to things than I do.

I’m more likely the one to flip out and call 911.

I’m sure that would have provided those nice dispatchers a little comic relief.

Sometimes Jesse hits a certain key on my keyboard that does something to my computer screen.  This was very annoying at first because it always took me forever to remember how to undo what he did. 

But, what I really want to know is which button he’s hitting to make the changes to my screen in the first place, because, while not as functional as I need it to be, I really like it and would like to be able to hit said button myself once in a while.

The undo method doesn’t exactly work the other way around so thinking that I can do it the way I undo it doesn’t do it in this case. 

Did you catch any of that? You may want to go read the last half of that last line again.

I asked Jesse what he did.  He just stared and stared.
So I asked Google what Jesse did.  And evidently Google is having an off day or something.

I am resigning myself to the fact that I may never know.

We are heading on over to our friend’s place for a quick weekend trip.  We told the big boys to clean bedrooms and get bags packed and all that good stuff.

Sam(3) was in his room helping the big boys pick it up.  He didn’t like that they were sorting through a pile of clothes and came out and told me his brothers were messing up all of his clothes so he really needed to go ahead and get packed and, Where is the bag I should use to put my underwear in?

I told him that I would pack his bag this evening and he didn’t need to worry about it. 
He then gave me the most serious, concerned look he could muster. 

But, can I bring my underwear?

Sam(3)
A fairly large plate of spaghetti.
A girl with a camera.

And that got me this:

And you know I just couldn’t not post it here.

Too adorable.

Way too adorable.

I let the boys play video games last night. It’s something special we do sometimes when Ryan has to fly late. He flew late last night.

Jesse doesn’t play video games. He’s just barely 2. But, he likes video game remote controls.

A lot.

Seriously, he doesn’t even care all that much about the games.  Last night, instead of hanging out with the boys, he came and sat with me in my room while I watched Netflix stuff on my computer.  This is very normal as he prefers to sit with me on my bed on nights like last night rather than watch what the guys are doing.

I know it won’t last forever. I’m eating it up while I can.

Jesse didn’t want to watch the boys play games but he did have his little GameCube remote with him while he hung out with me.  Just held it. Occasionally mashing buttons without thinking.

Then he fell asleep hugging it.

Lying on my bed.

Beside me.

It was the sweetest thing.

No, not the remote part, but that he fell asleep and was so cute part.

I think video game madness might be in the genes.  Kait definitely got my video game genes – or lack of.  The boys all most definitely got their dad’s genes in this area.

I’m sure there is a way to keep this gene from activating.  I am also sure, however, that that way does not involve letting your 2 year old sleep with a GameCube remote.

I’m afraid I might have just accidentally triggered a gene that could have remained dormant for many more years.

Or maybe not. 

There is always hope that the boy got my lack of video game enjoyment genes.
Whatever tiny sliver that hope might be.

I gardened today. There is this really ugly bush that was kinda half dead that I trimmed the heck out of.
It’s still ugly but at least it’s a smaller ugly.

The temperature rose into the lower 70s. It was nice.
Very nice.

I did some light raking and a little dead weed/plant pulling. The garden doesn’t look all that much better but I have it prepared for flowers now.

Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. This garden currently appears to be in that worse stage.

And who am I kidding, anyway? I don’t give a lick about the garden. I just want to make time go by faster so I can have this baby.

This 70 degree weather in January really helps make me feel a little better.

Yes.
It.
Does.