This afternoon I was telling some friends in an email about the difficult morning we’d had with Annalie and how seven is going to kill me ded when I realized: she’s seven and a half.

We’ve been here before, with Annalie testing her boundaries at this time of year. The halves always seem to be a challenge. I know of no research or developmental theory to back this up, just anecdotal evidence. I’ve discussed with friends many times how it always seems like kids go through something developmental around their half-birthdays that turns them temporarily insane. Realizing this made me feel immediately better. Not only am I not imagining it, but there is an end in sight. Also, Madge and Bonnie both assured me that eight has been one of their favorite ages so far with their kids.

Thanks to all of you who commented on my last post about your own woes. It makes me feel better to know I’m not the only one who finds life overwhelming from time to time. I hope we all get a break soon!

I got nothin’ right now.

I kind of hate myself for even thinking about writing this post, complete with an artsy nature photo, about how blah and tired I’ve been lately, and how there are a million things I could and should be doing instead of sitting on the couch after the kids are in bed. (The artsy nature photo itself is pretty cool, though; Annalie took it, which makes it that much cooler.) Yet here I am writing it. Bleargh.

Troy’s been working ridiculously long hours for months now and we’re all fraying at the edges because of it. Elliora still isn’t sleeping through the night and the lack of sleep is taking its toll on me and my patience levels. Annalie insists on acting like a seven-year-old (the nerve!). I’m always a few steps behind the mess that’s taking over the house. We could be moving as soon as February but don’t have orders yet so we can’t plan anything past January. I have a mile-long list of crochet projects I need to tackle but hardly any time or desire to crochet. I want to blog—I have so many posts in my head—but I never seem to get any of them actually written. One or both of the cats keep pooping on the floor next to the litter box. There is a new yet old ongoing family drama that is breaking my heart and making me lose sleep when I don’t have any to spare. Blah, blah, blah.

All this stuff is combining lately into a perfect storm that leaves me exhausted and frustrated in its wake. It’s overwhelming, and I tend to go a little numb when I think about it too much. I don’t even want to be writing this post about it except it’s driving me crazy that I can’t write the posts I want to write so I’m writing this one to explain why.

I know a lot of this is because of Troy’s crazy job right now, and more of it is because I have a baby, and that both of those things are temporary. I know that someday I will feel more like myself again, that this too shall pass. But oh, I’ll be annoyed about it until it does.

What’s annoying you right now? Let’s have a b!tch-fest. Those always make me feel better! Misery loves company.

Today has been one of those days. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t really good either.

I’m getting over a cold (aren’t I always?), the main symptom of which is an annoying cough.

Since I’m sick, I slept with Elliora during both her naps, which was doubtless good for me but as usual it made the whole day feel off-kilter.

I met a friend to paint pottery this evening, which was fun; but the 7 Days photo I’d planned to take at the studio didn’t happen because although I’d remembered to lug along my fancy camera, I’d forgotten to put the memory card back in it before I left.

(I did take this cameraphone picture of the mug I painted.)

When I got home, I half-heartedly attempted a few self-portraits only to be thwarted by a dead camera battery. So I plugged the battery in and decided I should eat something.

I asked Troy if there were any grapes left, and he said yes, and maybe he’d try one of the Ginger Gold apples we’d bought today.

That’s when it hit me. I knew what I needed to do to save the day. I needed to eat some apples and hummus. And I did, and they were delicious.

The ironic postscript is that when I uploaded the photos I’d taken of my day-saving apples and hummus (Ginger Gold apples go perfectly with hummus), something had corrupted the files. I was able to view the complete images in the preview window, but when I opened them in Photoshop half or more of each photo was missing. And then I couldn’t save the corrupted images. I ended up doing a screencap of the most-complete image, only to find I couldn’t even edit the screencap in Photoshop. So I uploaded to Flickr and used Picnik to edit it. Now I’m adding this to the 7 Days pool just minutes before midnight.

Dedication to 7 Days: I haz it.

Did you know that Brenda has published a book? She has! The first one (she has at least two more planned) is based on the alphabet flash cards that she made a few years ago for Bug, and they’re just as adorable in book form. You can even buy a Kindle edition to keep your kids entertained in the car or while you’re cooking dinner!

I bought a copy of the book for us, of course, and one for my 20-month-old niece just because. My mom reports that Aurora LOVES the book and has wanted to read it approximately 11 billion times since they got it. My brother has been working on teaching her the alphabet and she already knows most of her letters! This book is right up her alley, since she can practically read it herself.

Hearing how much Aurora loves this book made me think, “I should buy this for all the littles I need to give Christmas gifts to this year, and all the babies I know who are being born in the next few months!” Brilliant idea, right? So brilliant that I figured I should share it with you all. You’re welcome!

On another note, I’m so tired of being sick. Everyone in the house has been taking turns with a summer cold, the kind that leaves you listless and stuffed up and coughing. I’ve been fighting The Annoying Cold That Will Not Die (h/t Sonja) for what seems like forever. A few days ago, just as I was starting to feel better, I got a plugged milk duct! Those suckers can turn into mastitis, which I’ve never had but am scared of because I hear it’s quite painful. So I was stressing about that till it (thank God) cleared itself up. And then Monday, just as I was ready to tackle packing for California, I woke up with a fever and chills. What the heck, immune system!?

That is actually quite typical of me. Last year when I was pregnant, I was basically sick for two months with one virus or another. I think my immune system must be easily overwhelmed; once it’s working on one infection, all the other germs say, “Hey, she’s distracted! Quick, slip in while she’s not looking!”

Anyway. I’m feeling better today. I’m taking Emergen-C and drinking tons of fluids, and am trying really, really hard not to go overboard trying to make up for lost time, wearing myself out, and ending up right back where I started. Except for, um, making banana-coconut muffins and doing laundry and loading the dishwasher and sorting clothes to pack. That’s not overboard, right? Sigh. I’m doomed to be sick till September, probably.

But hey, California! Have I mentioned that we’re going to California for two weeks? Just me and the girls, making a cross-country trip to visit friends and family. We already have a ton of fun stuff planned, and my mom is going to be there at the same time as us, visiting her sister in the next town over from Brenda. Poor Troy has to stay home and work. Poor Troy, with the house and the TV and the bed alllll to himself for two weeks. I’m sure he’ll miss us terribly.

Although the travel prep is probably going to kill me, I’m quite looking forward to our actually being there, hanging out with old friends and introducing Elliora to them and my mom’s side of the family. Annalie is beyond excited to stay at Bug’s house.

I’m pretty excited that I’m going to be able to get Brenda to sign my book for me in just a few days. To celebrate that, and Brenda’s first published book, I’m going to give a copy away! Just leave a comment telling me if you’re a list-making, pack-weeks-ahead organized kind of person, or a wait-till-the-last-minute-and-oh-heck-I’ll-pack-my-laundry-they-have-washing-machines-there kind of person. If you actually buy a copy of Secret Agent Josephine’s ABC’s, forward me the Amazon order confirmation (feel free to delete your address first) and I’ll give you four extra entries in the drawing!

I’ll close comments after we arrive in California on Friday afternoon. Good luck!

This post has been brought to you by (1) me finally feeling something like normal for the first time in weeks, and (2) Elliora’s unexpectedly, blessedly long afternoon nap. That long nap was probably due to the fact that Elliora ate almost an entire grilled cheese sandwich (provolone and cheddar, ‘cuz we’re fancy like that) for lunch today, cut up into bite-size pieces and dipped in tomato and roasted red pepper soup. She loved it.

Comments are now closed. I’ll post the winner soon!

It’s ironic (or is it?! I’m always fuzzy on the definition of irony, thanks to Alanis Morissette) that the day after writing a post about how much easier our lives could be if I just remember to be more playful, I am writing a post about how my parenting report card today would be stamped with a great big FAIL.

Today I lost my temper at Annalie over something kind of stupid. She threw a fit over having to leave the house for dinner, then got mad because she had to put on long pants (a fight I have with her EVERY SINGLE DAY, every time we need to leave the house, oh my goodness does this kid ever need to live in Southern California). Then it went even further downhill, probably largely because she was hungry, which was why we were leaving the house to get some dinner.

I was hungry too, and I have the same tendency to be 300% more irritated by life when I’m hungry, so it took a lot of effort for me to stay calm. But by golly, I did. I spent 20 minutes patiently, calmly talking to Annalie. I reminded her she was hungry. I pointed out that 45F isn’t warm enough to go outside in a skirt and tank top. She was not entirely happy but had simmered down and even put on tights and was ready to leave.

And then she changed her mind. I don’t even know exactly what it was, but something set her back to square one and she told me, in that hmmph-so-there voice that is like fingernails on a chalkboard to me, that she wasn’t leaving the house ever again and I couldn’t make her. Then she laid down on her bed and grabbed the headboard like I was going to have to pry her off.

I saw red. I yelled at her. I pushed her down the hall towards Troy and stomped into my room to count to 100. I rested my forehead on the wall and took deep, shaky breaths. I listened to Annalie wailing, to Troy talking to her, to poor Elliora strapped into the infant seat, crying her head off. I hated myself just a little bit.

I pulled myself together and joined my family. I took Elliora out of the seat and comforted her. I hugged Annalie and asked her how much better she thought I felt now that I’d yelled at her. She said she didn’t know. I told her, “Not better at all. I feel worse. How do you feel?” She admitted she felt worse too. We all calmed down and talked and apologized and forgave. We went to dinner and came home and Annalie went to bed happy and serene while I laid on the couch and nursed Elliora and had a good cry.

I think what’s going on right now, mainly, is that Annalie is dealing with not having me to herself anymore. She is understandably frustrated at having to share my time, and that it often seems like the lion’s share of that is going to Elliora these days. Lately Annalie has been unusually snippy with me and angry at me. I know it’s all part of the process of learning to deal, and I’m glad she is taking it out on me and not the baby (with whom she is unfailingly gentle and loving), but it’s still trying. And today we were both hungry and I was tired and breastfeeding hormones probably played a part and just arrrrrgggghhhh.

On top of that, school has been challenging. I’ve been trying hard for the last month to get back into a routine with school, and Annalie is fighting me every step of the way. For every hour of school we do, I spend easily another hour convincing her. It’s exhausting.

Part of me thinks it’s no big deal. She is in first grade; putting the curriculum on hold and unschooling for another month or so won’t hurt her. We still read books every day, and she reads and writes plenty on her own. We talk about time and dates and prices and measurements every day, in real-life situations at the store, while cooking, while planning a trip. Now that the weather is warming up, and Elliora is a bit older and doesn’t hate the car quite as much, we can start going to the library regularly and hitting the museums again. We can keep plugging away at our year’s curriculum right through summer if we want to. We’re going to start using Time4Learning as a supplement (thanks, Yara!) and I’m hopeful that it will be a good fit for Annalie’s learning style and our needs right now.

[I am a bit apprehensive leaving the negative stuff about homeschooling in this post because I've gotten some pretty negative responses from people about this kind of thing in the past. Please know that I am not saying homeschooling is too hard for us, because I'm not; I'm saying that right now homeschooling is challenging but we are persevering because I want to teach my kids about perseverance and flexibility just as much as I want to teach them how to read and write. If I honestly thought homeschooling wasn't working for us anymore we wouldn't be doing it. It's as simple as that. And I want to be honest about our struggles because if someone else is struggling in their homeschool at least they won't read my blog under the erroneous impression that homeschooling comes easily to everyone else in the world but them.]

On top of everything else Troy’s job is crazy busy right now and he’s basically leaving for work before we get up and getting home just in time to tuck Annalie in at night. As you can imagine this is stressing all of us out for various reasons.

I’m truly okay now. I talked to Troy and my mom and Brenda and Madge. Brenda and Madge both told me that when I lose my temper at my kid, it’s an opportunity for me to help her learn how to deal with anger and angry people, and also a chance to teach her about how even her parents aren’t perfect. (Gasp! Shocking but true.) My mom and Troy both had good ideas for ways to help Annalie learn to deal with her frustration. They all reminded me that things will get easier and I know they are right. I am stretched pretty thin right now, with nursing a baby and homeschooling a first-grader and attempting to keep the house in some kind of order on days that are too cold for Annalie to play outside, and I need to be as kind to myself as I would to anyone else in this situation. So I’m trying.

Sarah commented on the last post that Annalie’s vocabulary is so good for her age that it’s easy to forget she’s just a little kid. I confess I have the same problem sometimes. Annalie is so mature and smart and empathetic in some ways, but in other ways she is still very much six-going-on-seven. I am guilty of expecting too much of her at times. Especially since Elliora was born, I think, since in comparison with a four-month-old Annalie seems impossibly grown-up. But she’s not. She’s still a kid in need of snuggles and silliness and reassurance and guidance and tons of patience and understanding and love. Though really, what adult doesn’t need those things too?

Tomorrow is another day. It might bring more temper tantrums, it might not. Either way, we’ll handle it and I will attempt to remain calm and remember that we’re all doing the best we can under the circumstances, knowing it will get easier eventually. Or I’ll get stronger in the process. Probably both.

How are you today?

You know, I like a challenge. Challenges keep life interesting.

Give birth weeks before Christmas? No problem.

Spend hours sitting on the couch nursing a newborn when I’d normally be decorating the house, shopping and baking, wrapping presents and getting packages ready to ship? Sure, one Christmas that’s a little less festive than usual won’t kill us, and next year I can do all those things again.

Host a stream of out-of-town guests in the weeks before and after the baby’s birth? Hey, the more the merrier! We love company, and everyone will understand if the house is a little messy under the circumstances.

Of course I’d be happy to help you out with your Christmas card, Mom. I should be able to design it for you in only an evening or two, especially if you’ll hold Elliora for me. Hmm, it seems like she’d rather be held by her mama. And she wants to nurse and doze on me for five hours straight? All righty, I can use Photoshop one-handed; it just might take me a bit longer, that’s all.

Come down with my second cold in a month, really? Okay…I guess I’m usually sick this time of year anyway. I can deal with a cold. We might need to go buy a new humidifier, though, because ours died last week. And maybe pick up some saline nasal spray and a couple boxes of those tissues with lotion in them.

Wait, what!? PINKEYE, seriously? Sigh.

I guess I’d better let Bekah know that she probably doesn’t want to bring her family here to spend the night before their early-morning flight out of DC to spend Christmas with family in Wisconsin. The last thing she needs is for me to pass on an eye infection to all her kids right before Christmas. Man, Annalie’s going to be pretty disappointed when I tell her about the cancelled plans in the morning. She was really looking forward to a sleepover with her friends.

At least while I’m spending all this time nursing the baby and getting healthy again, I’ll stay busy. I mean, if I didn’t need to address all our Christmas cards, write baby-gift thank-you notes, package up and ship the handful of Christmas New Year presents we’re sending to family, help Annalie make the cinnamon-dough ornaments I promised her we could make, take self-portraits every day this week, and try to keep up with commenting on the other 7 Dayers’ photos with my one-handed typing, I might get bored!

Honestly, I just keep laughing. What’s next, a broken arm? A surprise visit from my Aunt Mildred and her 13 kids and three incontinent dogs? You better believe I’m being extra-careful lately—holding handrails on the stairs and walking around any ice—and saying a prayer of thanks that I don’t actually have an Aunt Mildred. I’m also saying prayers of thanks that my mom is still here, still in good health, and doing all my laundry for me.

It’s also worth mentioning that I feel like a walking experiment for home remedies today. Because I’m breastfeeding, I’m trying not to take cold meds unless I absolutely need to. I’ve gone through almost two whole boxes of tissue and half a bottle of saline nasal spray in the past two days. I’ve taken hot, steamy showers. I have drunk gallons of water and hot peppermint tea with organic raw honey stirred into it. I’ve taken extra vitamin C and swallowed a chopped-up clove of raw garlic (like taking pills, with a glass of water). I’ve stood over a steaming pot of water and apple cider vinegar. I’ve put warm compresses and chamomile tea bags on my eye. And finally, in the Possibly More Than You Wanted To Know category, I’ve put a few drops of breastmilk in my eye. I think it was my friend Lynn who told me about that trick a few years ago. Lucky for me, I just happened to be lactating when I got pinkeye for the first time since I was a teenager, eh?

Basically, I surrender. If you need me before 2011, I’ll be right here in the corner of the couch, addressing envelopes and snuggling with my girls in between one-handedly typing comments on Flickr. Hey, as long as you’re up, can you refill my water cup and bring me a banana? Thanks.

Yesterday I had a doctor’s appointment. Because I have high blood pressure, my weekly appointments include a 20-minute non-stress test to make sure the baby’s activity level is normal. Usually it’s just a quick thing, not a big deal.

Yesterday, I think they were waiting for an exam room to open up, so they left me on the monitor for nearly an hour. Again, not a big deal, except that this baby likes to move away from the sensor so I usually end up holding it to my stomach just so in order to keep the heartbeat audible. After 20 minutes, that gets a little tiring. After more than twice that long, my hands were cramping up.

Also, Brenda and the girls came with me yesterday because I was having an ultrasound, which Bug had never seen before. We’d brought crayons and paper and other stuff to entertain the kids, but after 45 minutes stuck in a small room they were getting mighty squirrelly.

Finally they came and got us. The doctor came in (I love my new doctor, by the way; changing insurance plans and doctors at 34 weeks was so very worth it) and assured me that the baby’s heartbeat had looked great on the NST (at which I wanted to ask, then why did you keep me in there for nearly an hour?) and measured me. She did a quick ultrasound, which Bug found quite interesting and Annalie—who’s been at a half-dozen ultrasounds in the past couple of months—found totally boring. And then we left.

It wasn’t a traumatic experience or anything. Just a little annoying. But I guess the whole thing struck Brenda as a good example of how DONE I am with being pregnant. Or maybe it just struck her as funny. In any case, she illustrated it, as seen above.

And she’s right. I do feel very done with being pregnant. Annalie was born at 36 weeks, so with her I never had the chance to experience that last excruciating month of being pregnant. Not only that, due to a combination of factors, I didn’t find out I was pregnant with her till I was 16 weeks along, so my pregnancy with her was, to me, less than five months long. Compared to that, this pregnancy feels like it’s been going on for years.

Tonight I was supposed to be going to a fancy party with Troy at the National Archives. It was one fancy party I was actually looking forward to, which if you know me is pretty strange. Normally I tolerate things like that, at best. But this time not only was I excited about it, I actually had a dress that I loved months ahead of time, which I bought way back in July on super-clearance, thinking it might come in handy.

As recently as a week ago, I was still looking forward to tonight. Then a few days ago, the baby dropped. That never happened with Annalie, or at least not till I was already in labor, so I had no previous experience with how uncomfortable it can be. Now when the baby moves around I can feel it way down in my pelvis and it’s not fun. Also, if I stand or walk around or forget to drink water for more than 20 minutes, I experience some truly delightful Braxton Hicks contractions, which are (1) painful and (2) frustrating because they’re not real labor.

Last night, I got to thinking about getting dressed up and going out to a party full of people I don’t know at 7 o’clock in the evening, the time when I am normally capable of nothing more taxing than sitting on the couch in my jammies, staring at the TV. The more I thought about it, the less it seemed like a good idea. Last night, after talking to Troy about it, and a hormone- and tiredness-fueled crying jag, I decided I needed to admit that I wasn’t going to be going to the party, I wasn’t going to get to wear my cute maternity dress, and I wasn’t even going to have a brand-new baby to show for it.

That’s another thing that’s getting to me, too. I really, really want to have this baby before Brenda and Bug have to go home. I want them to have the chance to meet her! And of course I’d rather not be pregnant another two and a half weeks or so. Sigh.

I don’t really have much reason to complain. I’ve had such an easy pregnancy compared to others: no morning sickness, no heartburn, no horribly swollen feet, no back pain, etc. I was able to get pregnant without medical intervention, and I’ve never had a miscarriage. I’m healthy and my baby is healthy and I have every reason to expect a complication-free labor and delivery. I have many, many reasons to be thankful, and I am.

But I’m still so very done being pregnant.

Illo by Brenda Ponnay

Because today is Saturday, I was able to sleep in a bit, but by 9 o’clock I was awake. I needed to get up anyway. We have some cleaning and laundry to do so we’re ready for our long-anticipated guests when they arrive Tuesday.

Annalie and I also needed to do some school, since we didn’t quite finish yesterday, just reading and a spelling test. Unfortunately, even though she’s doing really well at reading, those are probably the two subjects Annalie likes the least right now. It’s funny to me, and hard to comprehend, since reading and spelling were always my two easiest and favorite subjects.

But it didn’t surprise me when I called for Annalie to come to the table, telling her we needed to get reading and spelling done, and she came stomping into the dining room in a snit. I remained calm and asked her to take off her Little Mermaid singing necklace and put down the cell phone that she was carrying, since we don’t allow toys at the table when we’re doing school. She yanked the necklace off her neck and threw it on the floor at the same time that she slammed the cell phone down hard on the counter.

I calmly told her that she needed to go sit on the top step for a time-out, because she knows better than to throw things. And…well, let’s just say the situation deteriorated from there. Over the next hour, there was some crying, some yelling, and some stomping around—and I’m not going to tell you who did what, but I will tell you that I did not remain calm. We managed to get part of the reading done, but then Annalie went to get herself a drink of water from the fridge dispenser and accidentally-on-purpose let the cup fill and overflow, soaking two photographs and a picture one of Annalie’s friends colored for her.

That was when I sort of lost it. I asked Annalie what on earth was wrong with her, and told her to just go, to get out of my sight. She ran out of the kitchen crying, knowing she had done something wrong but also hurt that her normally patient mother had told her to get lost. Frustrated with Annalie and myself, I tossed the ruined pictures, grabbed a bunch of paper towels and started sopping up the water.

Troy came into the kitchen to see what was going on. I explained what had happened and told him that I was not having a good day, that I just needed to go back to bed, that I didn’t think I was in any shape to meet a friend for pottery-painting that afternoon. Troy suggested I email and ask if we could reschedule, so I did. (Thanks again for being so understanding, Shayne!)

Troy went to talk to Annalie in her room while I went to our bedroom and, after putting away the folded laundry all over my side of the bed, curled up with my ridiculously huge pregnancy pillow pulled the covers up over my head, bracing myself for what I knew I needed to do: cry. Even though I know sometimes it’s necessary to make myself feel better, I really hate crying. And I knew I had a cry coming, so I just wanted to get it over with.

A few minutes later, I was wiping my face and debating whether I wanted to roll over and get a tissue or just sniff hard, when Annalie came quietly into the room and climbed up on the bed. She got under the covers and put her head next to mine on the pillow and said, “I’m sorry I spilled water all over the fridge, Mama. And I’m sorry you’re having a rough morning. Daddy explained it to me.”

I put my arm around her, gave her a kiss, and told her I loved her. I apologized for losing my temper; she said she forgave me. We laid there talking idly for a couple of minutes when I had an idea.

“Hey Annalie, can you tell me how to spell egg?”

“Sure! E-g-g.”

“Right. Do you think you could tell me how to spell, oh, the word pets?”

Quietly to herself, Annalie sounded it out, “Puh-eh-tuh-sss…” then spelled it for me. I told her she was right. She was silent for a second, then giggled and asked, “Is this my spelling test?”

My response was to ask her if she knew how to spell less. She giggled again and spelled it perfectly. We went through all the rest of her spelling words that way, and she got every single one right, even the trickiest one, give.

When we were finished, I asked if she would go get her reading book so she could read her story a second time. She groaned a bit, so I sighed theatrically and said, “You know what would really make me feel so much better right now? If only someone could read me a story about ducks and chicks.” Annalie laughed at that. I told her to go tell Daddy she’d gotten 100% on her spelling test, and then come back to me with her reading book.

Laughing, she leapt off the bed and went running down the hall, calling out excitedly, “Daddy, Daddy! I got one hundred percent right on my spelling test! Not on my dry-erase board, but with my mouth! I even got the hardest word right, wanna hear? G-i-v-e! That spells give!”

She came back to the bedroom with her book and read through her story again, this time without me pointing at the words as she read, with good expression, and with almost no faltering or errors. I thanked her and praised her improvement on the second reading. She smiled and batted her lashes in that I-know-I’m-smart-but-you-can-tell-me-again way she has. I told her we were done with school, that she could go play.

She kissed me on the cheek and said, “Thanks, Mom!”

A few minutes later I got up. I got a phone call from another friend and made plans to meet her and her kids later for dinner and frozen custard while Troy watches the Nebraska game in peace. Annalie got dressed all in black and stuck a scarf in the back of her pants and went outside to be a cat while Troy raked up some leaves. I poured myself a cup of coffee and took a deep breath.

Troy’s mom and stepdad were here for a weekend, and they got a whole monster post all about their visit. My mom was here for a week, and I still have not written a word about it. Sorry, Mom.

Of course, if you know how we usually roll, you know that my mom’s visits are normally closer to a month long. Her being here for a week felt like a blip, like she was barely here before she was going home again.

We crammed a lot into the week, I guess. The first whole day my mom was in town, we spent about eight hours dealing with various routine pregnancy-related doctor’s appointments. That wasn’t a very fun day, but it was a lot easier since my mom was with us, helping entertain Annalie in waiting rooms.

The last appointment I had that day was my 32-week ultrasound. This was the first time I’d ever gotten an ultrasound at a military hospital, so I can’t say that every military-hospital ultrasound would be like this one, but I do know that it was a completely different experience from all the ultrasounds I’ve gotten from civilian facilities.

First of all, there was a big sign on the door stating that kids weren’t allowed in the ultrasound room unless they were patients. Troy had managed to get off work early so he could meet us for the ultrasound, and he charmed them into letting Annalie come into the room with us, which was nice because it meant my mom, Troy, and Annalie all got to come in and watch. But then we had the least chatty ultrasound tech I’ve ever met. She worked in silence, and seemed startled when we asked her questions. She spent an hour taking every single measurement she could take, telling us that even though I’d had every measurement already taken at my last ultrasound so she normally wouldn’t be taking so many, I’d had the previous ultrasound done at a civilian facility and that wasn’t good enough. Then she left the room, leaving us in the dark, to talk to the doctor. She came back ten minutes later and had to redo a bunch of the measurements because the doctor didn’t think they were clear enough. Despite the 90 minutes she spent taking all those measurements, she never once attempted to get a look at the baby’s face. Also, that was the only ultrasound I’ve had done where they didn’t print me a single picture.

Things are nuts at this base hospital right now. They’re closing a couple of other military health facilities in the area, and funneling all the patients to this base since they’re building a new hospital there…which will open in another year. In the next month they’re expecting to deliver twice as many babies as usual, with no increase in staff or beds. Things are so crazy there that in the past five months I’ve seen five different OBs and two different nurse-midwives for my appointments. I’ve been asking for two months now if there was any way for me to get a referral to a civilian OB so I didn’t have to drive so far to my appointments, and so I didn’t have to have my baby at a hospital that’s heavily overburdened. Everyone flatly told me there was no way, that it was the policy of the command not to refer patients except in cases of extreme need. I was on the verge of telling Troy I didn’t care, that we could pay out of pocket if we had to, but I did not want to keep going back to that base hospital.

And then Troy found out there was an easy way for me to switch to a civilian doctor and hospital to have this baby: switch to a slightly different insurance plan, one that has some minor co-pays and a very reasonable deductible. That’s it. THAT’S IT. I have decided to laugh rather than cry at the fact that not one single person I talked to in the past two months ever mentioned this option to me, and be grateful that we figured it out when we did.

So at 34 weeks pregnant, I’m switching doctors. Now I’ll only be driving 15 minutes to my appointments instead of an hour. The antepartum testing I’ll be doing twice a week is at a hospital two miles from my house, about a five-minute drive away—the same hospital where we’ll be having the baby, that happens to be one of the top-ranked hospitals in the country for a variety of services, including its wonderful childbirth facilities. Please pardon me while I do the dance of joy.

Oops. Did I trick you into thinking this would be a nice chatty post with photos of the fun stuff we did with my mom while she was here, and then I suckered you into reading a rant about my frustrations with the military medical insurance system? And now, like our neighbor’s cat Mazda, you are unamused? Sorry about that. Here, let me show you some more photos of fun stuff.

Although it looks like Annalie is performing some delicate operation here, all she’s doing is stirring plaster and water together to make a decorative stepping stone. The kit came with the mask and gloves and Annalie insisted on using them. Madge commented on Flickr that when she saw this photo her first thought was, “Wow, homeschooling is intense!” which cracked me right up.

Our homeschooling days aren’t always so intense, though. One of the days my mom was here we made God’s eyes after reading about how the Huichol people in Mexico make them for good luck and protection. Craft projects with Annalie can be hit or miss, and I wasn’t sure if she’d be able to do this one without getting frustrated, but she was so into the idea that I decided to give it a shot.

As it turned out, Annalie picked it right up and needed almost no help once she got going. She watched me wind the yarn around a few times as I explained it to her, and then she took over and did great. The only times I helped her were when she wanted to change colors.

My mom had more trouble with her God’s eye than Annalie did with hers. She kept forgetting which direction she was supposed to be winding the yarn. So Annalie stepped in and showed her the right way to do it. It was fairly hilarious.

I don’t even know what we did the rest of the time my mom was here. We went to gymnastics one night. We went out to eat a few times. I baked egg rolls. We spent another half-day on a doctor’s appointment (before we figured out that we could switch insurance plans). We did schoolwork. We met Bekah for pottery-painting one night. We went to church. We sorted through two bins full of baby clothes and got them washed (and now they’re sitting in a bin in the living room because the room which needs to become the office so that the current office can become the baby’s room is uninhabitable at the moment thanks to a leaky window and possible mold; we’re waiting for the contractor to come back and fix it). My mom let me sleep in on the few mornings we didn’t have a reason to get up and go somewhere. I made a postcard for my mom to send to the usual suspects. The time went by way too fast. But we’re glad the visit happened at all—one last visit with us as a family of three.

I’ve written about four posts in my head in the past few days and have one actually half-written and saved in my drafts folder. But somehow I have not been able to fully write even one post. I’m sure I can blame my inability to blog at least partly on being 32 weeks pregnant; I hit the wall around 7pm most days and can barely even speak coherent sentences after that, let alone write them. Also, we’ve been busy with visitors; we had a really fun visit with Troy’s mom and stepdad last weekend and now my mom is here for a quick visit and we’re all happy about that.

At the same time there are some not-so-fun things going on in the lives of some people I love right now. And I’m not great at dealing with emotional stuff at the best of times. When I’m hormonal all bets are off. I might look calm on the surface but underneath I’m paddling furiously—worrying, praying, trying to go about my days without letting the dread get the better of me or giving in to the urge to hide in my bedroom all day. Life goes on and I’m okay, honestly. I can and do talk to Troy, my mom, and my good friends when I’m feeling like this, and it helps a lot. But still, underneath, I’m paddling away.