Can anyone tell me where that burst of energy is that I'm supposed to get before the baby comes. I have no desire to do anything. I got up around noon today, forced myself to do breakfast dishes while Doug had the kids at the library (the Saturday routine now) and basically sat around moaning about not feeling well the rest of the day. Oh wait, I vacuumed my floor and cleaned my bathroom, so I accomplished something small. I was sick last night and sick again 'tis morning. The indegestion is really killing my guts lately. I feel drained and HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT HOT...get the idea? I'M FREAKIN' HOT. I just cooked a half ass lazy supper and it's now 7 p.m. and I feel like I want to die.
Justin's birthday is Monday, so Doug finished shopping for him today. We'll do a movie/cake/supper thing tomorrow. I go back to work on Monday for my last day! I'm happy about that. I will continue to get paid for July, but anything I work after Monday, I will turn in and get paid hourly. I'll bank those hours for August when I'll be barely making anything. I just look forward to not having to get up after a long night and drag my ass into work. I'm sure I'll just get more nervous having more time to devote my thoughts to child birth though, but I'll manage. Sigh...long hot day folks!
I'm very happy work is almost done for me. My size, the heat and my swollen feet are making me really edgy and not much fun to be around. The mama says I'm very cranky! I went to the doctor's office yesterday for my checkup. We waited for an hour to get in. I managed to get the check up part finished with the nurse and my pants down waiting for the doctor before she ended up called away to the hospital. Doh. It was pretty disappointing. I was hoping to get re-checked for any progress. Oh well, I got over it.
I was talking with a co-worker today about the trouble the boys had gotten into and she told me to call our home insurance company because they cover things like that in the liability clause. That was two different people that told me that, so we yanked out the policy tonight and sure enough there is a clause in there that covers damage caused by children under the age of thirteen. It does mention a maximum amount of five hundred dollars though. We're not sure, but Doug's going to call tomorrow. Even five hundred is better than a kick in the head.
Mom got all the baby's things washed this week. They smell soooo good!! Doug and I organized the furniture around a bit more the other night. The only thing we're missing now is a baby! Of course, hubby still has the task of installing the car seat, but other than that, we're pretty darn ready. I say that like I have confidence. Ha ha.
Nothing is really new around here. We had a real busy weekend that has left us pretty tired tonight. Yesterday afternoon, Mom and I spent a few hours shopping around for some odds and ends. Last night, Doug and I drove to Denton for a relative's wedding. I spent the evening feeling pretty huge and underdressed. Oh well, it's nice to get out alone with Doug. It won't be happening too often after Mom goes home in August.
I am finding it harder and harder to get around. I hurt all over no matter what I am doing. It's really bad when I wake up in the night. It's all I can do to waddle to the bathroom and back. It's real bad first thing in the morning too. My hands swell so much my knuckles pain and it always takes me awhile to "get things going". As I roll to move, I hear things crunching and popping. It's just not natural! Ouch! Hey Humbaba, did B hurt like hell the last 8 weeks? Sometimes I feel like its just me. I don't see other women walking like they hurt like I do. Walking honestly kills me. I carry this baby so low, my hips/pelvic bone/legs/back all hurt. Even when I sit, legs are apart and the top of my belly takes the burning. Nasty. We are down to three weeks now! I wanna say "thank god", but I'm still chicken!
Today we celebrated Sarah's birthday (which is tomorrow). She had a friend over and we took them all to see "Finding Nemo". I found the movie a bit disappointing. I normally like Disney cartoon movies, but this one kept me yawning. I think "Rugrats Go Wild" would have been much better to see. She had her presents and cake etc when we all got home. She ended up with sixty dollars total to spend, so Doug took her and her friend shopping before taking her friend home. She was pretty excited about the stuff she got. Tomorrow we'll take her out to eat for her birthday.
The kids start their first week of YMCA camp tomorrow too. Mom will have her mornings alone. Doug and I have decided it's been so great having her down to help out, that we aren't letting her go home. She laughs hard at that one. I think the heat she's experiencing has her wanting to run home! Although, I must say, the heat is really bothering me too. I think it's because I am carrying around a seven pound hot water bottle every where I go ;).
This will be my last week of work. My official last day is Monday, the 30th. I can't wait! It's been a real beating these past few weeks to get up every morning and go. I envy women who take months off, it would have been nice to do that considering how uncomfortable I've been this past month. I think the priority this week is getting the car seat in the van and the babies clothes all washed. The car seat installation looks like it's going to be a curse. Things have changed.
I'm a bit surprised my labor didn't start last night. After my pelvic check yesterday, I started having some "show" (pinkish colored discharge that usually occurs right before or during labor for those who don't know). Last time that happened, I went into labor shortly thereafter. I guess I'll assume she just poked me too hard cuz it did hurt like hell at one point. When I jumped and yelped, doc says "oops, I promise to not do that again". Isn't that awful? I'd much rather be sore or jumpy from being romped too hard from my hubby! hehe.
I'm real sore tonight, lots of pressure on the pelvic bone. Aches and pains in places I didn't know could hurt. Gotta go do a bank rec. now to make up my time from work. I'm trying harder to leave earlier and take advantage of working from home more now.
I went to my doctor's appointment today. Everything is looking good (aside from my nasty weight. This baby better come soon). Belly is measuring at 36cm which coincides with being 36 weeks. Right on target. She said at one point that she was touching our babies little head (and I use the term little...loosely =P). Baby's ready. I'm not. Well I am, but I'm not. I'm bugging Doug with last minute things that I feel need to be done. We are running out of time. "Gotta do that Hi!"
Doc advised us to get our car seat installed as soon as possible and to have it safety checked which we'll do soon. My only craving I've really been having with this baby is for ice. I'm so dry and thirsty all the time that if I'm not careful about how much water I down, it'll actually come back up, so I've taken up eating ice. Doug even bought me a blender over the weekend so I could crush it more easily. Doctor says to limit my ice intake to maybe one cup daily which is gonna kill me considering all of the ice machines at work calling my name every hour. The one thing I enjoy and now it's being taken away all because of restricted blood vessels in my tummy. Blah Blah Blah.
A co-worker told me today that I look bigger today than I did on Friday when she saw me. True friend that is LOL ;). I don't think it's bigger, he's just adjusted himself so his little butt is sticking out more because even I can't see my belly button when just looking down. That just happened on Sunday too, so I'm not sure what he's doin' in there! He probably dropped down into place. Last time I was checked, she said I was carrying low, but didn't mention that she could actually feel his head. Almost time for an updated pic of baby belly! We did discover today that with all my ice eating and cold water gulping in the evenings, I am the one who's waking baby up. I always thought he was just a night owl, but the switch in temps is actually waking him up and causing him to be active. Speakin of...I didn't sleep well last night. I had one of my horrible dreams about Sarah being killed, so I basically stared at the ceiling for two hours early 'tis morning. I just got up from a nap a little bit ago and I'm truly ready to go back to bed.
Ya know. I'm cranky. I'm trying hard not to be, but these past few days, maybe even weeks, I'm just "not in the mood". I'm impatient and as my mother put it tonight "short fused". I know people at work have noticed it too. People are saying "you're just ready to have the baby". Well ya ok, I want to have the baby, but I'm also still pretty scared. To get the "prize at the end", I gotta go through some pretty painful crap and it's very frustrating to me knowing that if I wasn't so scared of needles, I could relieve a lot of that pain for myself with an epidural. I just can't do it though.
I dragged my mother out tonight to finish up baby shopping. The only thing left now to buy is formula which I'll do when he's born (I'm expecting all kinds of grief from some for not breast feeding, but as my cranky self said tonight, they can suck my a*s!) and a playpen (which we'll do in a couple of months when he's bigger). I'm feeling pretty ready now. I have washing and a bit of organizing left to do. Mom's been keeping up with a lot of the housework (even when I yell at her not to do that), so I think I'll have some time this weekend to poke around with baby stuff.
I'm tired of working too. I kind of wish now that I had arranged to take June off. I don't want to be there every day. I'm tired! My feet swell (my own shoes wouldn't even fit the other day AND I weighed six pounds heavier one night and I ache all over. I walk like the babies head is about to come out. I have a heat rash under my boobs that itches. My chin is all broke out. My hands swell while I sleep and they pain badly in the mornings. I have to pee all the freakin' time. I can't get comfortable, I hurt, the top of my belly burns all the time and I just feel like sleeping. Fourteen hours sleep is barely enough for me!
I bought pads today to pack in my suitcase for the hospital. I haven't used pads for...gosh...nine years. What ever happened to slender, regular and maxi? It took me just as long to pick out pads as it did diapers! I feel old. To top the night off, just before Mom and I headed out, I threw up, wet my pants in the process and didn't have anything to wear (all washed but not dry) accept for coveralls that I basically outgrew over a month ago. I got to feel even bigger tonight as a result! And what the heck happened to my sex life anyway?!!
Sigh, four more weeks everyone.
Ya know, most of all, I wish the boys weren't in such awful trouble. That bugs me the most.
Well I guess Cody's sorry letter wasn't as heartfelt as I initially had hoped. Doug discovered today that he had been sneaking into our bedroom to steal candy that we keep in our closet. Not just a few candies, a LOT of candies. Not only did Cody repeatedly lie about what he took, while checking our closet for missing candy, Doug discovered that all 3 Yu-Gi-Oh boxes of booster packs were now empty. He actually climbed in our closet and snuck every single booster pack back to his room where he proceeded to open all of them (over two hundred dollars worth of cards). Let's just say we're not happy campers tonight either. Doug's feelings are pretty hurt. He tries so hard to be a good father to this child and now feels like everything he's done means nothing to Cody. It's just not getting through. We really hoped to be making some sort of impact, but it seems to be just escalating into something much bigger. We sooooo need a therapist. Soon.
As the title says, life does go on. The boys seem to be taking their punishment like troopers. Cody is a bit slow with his assignments and is currently one day behind, but he's a day dreamer when left alone. Doug sits in with him quite often and reads while he plows through the work book pages and he'll do so tomorrow so he gets caught up. I'll have chores for them tomorrow to do to get them out of their rooms a bit. They do come out to eat with us at meal time and we see them quite often while they are working in their rooms, Plus they obviously can go to the bathroom, but the rest of the time they are in their rooms. Period. Everytime I even feel a bit sorry for them, I have to keep reminding myself why they are there in the first place. Punishment needs to be unpleasant, I certainly don't want it to be "easy" for them. If ever put in a situation of such stupidity again, I want them to think about consequences first (sounds like every parents dream eh).
Last night when Doug and I went to bed, there was a sorry letter waiting on my pillow from Cody. It was long and very detailed about what he was sorry about. He acknowledged that we love him and that he has a lot of stuff that other kids don't have and that he blew it away. He apologized many times for breaking "16 panes of glass" and admitted he didn't know what he was thinking and he'd "never ever ever ever do something like that again". The letter almost sounded like one of our lectures. But ya know, he's nine years old and credit was due to him for taking the initiative to even write the letter in the first place because we certainly didn't ask for a letter from either of them. We told him we were proud of him for writing the letter and that we hoped he truly does learn something from all of this.
Mom and I have managed to hit a few stores for some shopping over the past couple of days. I got some needed kitchen/bathroom gadget thingies that I just never get around to buying. I had ran out of my Zofran medicine on Thursday and decided to try a few days without it just to see if the sickness has passed. Friday I did real good, but today I woke up and within a few hours, I was sick twice. So, Doug went right to the drugstore to pick up my refill. Back on medicine I go. Very odd to be sick like that this late in pregnancy. Thank god something works for me though. I just can't imagine.
It's been a pretty nasty week and I only feel like now I can post about it. On Sunday afternoon, Doug had taken the kids out shopping so Cody could spend his birthday money while I stayed home to scrub the house. Later when they got home, the boys went out rollerblading for a bit before supper. They came back home to get their bikes and were told to be back in thirty minutes. Knowing what I know now, I should have kept them home at that point, but nobody could ever foresee what was going to take place next in those thirty minutes.
When the boys arrived back home for supper, apprx. 10 minutes after sitting down to eat, the doorbell rang and some loud thumping rapped on the door. Doug went to answer it while I tried to quiet the dogs down. When I picked the dogs up out of the front room, I saw 2 police cars and a white car parked around our house. I thought oh shit! I asked the boys what the heck they did. Of course they did nothing. No not these boys.
After about five minutes or so, Doug called for Cody, a minute later, for Justin. After what felt like an eternity, Doug came in to get his shoes. I asked him what was going on. All he said was that it was our worse nightmare, the boys broke a window at the school. I thought to myself those little shits. They were all going to take a walk down to the school to see the damage, so I waited at home with Sarah. It felt like a really long time of waiting. I called my mom to tell her what was going on and to kill time. Finally Doug came home. He looked totally drained. I said "well?". He said get in the van, you've got to see what I saw.
We drove down to view what I thought was a broken window. Let's just say, they started at one end of the school and made their rounds around 3 sides of the school. The worse of the damage was the back entrance of the school. Ever see those big double glass doors with two panes of glass on either side? Well - destroyed like you couldn't imagine. Huge boulder rocks were used and two of the top panes were completely beat out apparently so they could get inside the school to get drinks of water. They found some blood at the scene where Justin even cut himself a bit getting in. Let me tell you, I stood there in shock after viewing all the total destruction my boys had caused.
Doug took me home where I proceeded into each of their rooms where I could only scream for a few minutes at each of them. I was beyond angry, I had to stop and calm down. Doug and I talked a bit, then I called Mom again. You can't imagine how we felt. This wasn't a window or two that mischievous boys broke by throwing rocks. We are talking 16 panes of glass, two of which are huge double doors, completely destroyed! What made it worse is they did it alone. They weren't with a group of kids or a friend - NOTHING! ALONE!
The police talked to Doug about damages, charges being filed, alternative schools, civil suits, criminal records etc. We tossed and turned and basically spent the night in tears. We just weren't able to understand what the heck was going through their heads. When asked, we got lame excuses such as bored and thirsty. Well crap, it wasn't just one window they broke to get in for a drink and they were only down there for thirty minutes PLUS they had filled their damn water bottles before going anyway! God what stress!
Went to work the next day. We didn't allow Cody to go to the camp we had him and Sarah registered in, so I took him to work with me and Doug took Justin with him. Just prior to going to work we went to speak with the Asst. principal. We just wanted to make sure they knew that we knew what was going on and that we were willing and waiting to pay fully for all damages, that we just needed an estimate. It was a difficult morning. After I got to work and explained between tears what was going on, it was suggested that I speak with one of the ministers at the church who has a lot of experience with this sort of thing.
To make an already long story a bit shorter, I really just needed some sort of guidance as to how to deal with this. Where do we begin? How do we punish? How do we forgive? When does punishment end? Will it end? What kind of punishment is appropriate? I really feared that this incident would overshadow our family for god knows how long. I knew Sunday night I wanted to strangle the boys, but then the anger was just replaced with a whole lot of sadness, confusion and unanswered questions. Why did they do this? What are we supposed to do? What did we do so wrong? We recognize that it's probably not our worse nightmare that they could have done now after thinking up and hearing much worse stories, but crap, it's a huge disappointment and a shock. We are worried about the boys. Why did they do this? I just never would have expected this kind of action from either of them.
The Minister I spoke to on Monday really helped us get a starting point with this whole mess. We decided on punishment that we feel good about. It has a starting point, a middle and even an end. The boys broke 16 panes of glass, therefore, they will be punished for 16 weeks. The first two weeks of this "constructive punishment" is very strict to represent the seriousness of what they did. The next two weeks has opportunities to "earn" privileges. As the weeks roll by, the punishment begins to lift gradually with more and more opportunities for them to earn privileges. They will be given assignments twice daily that they will have to complete. They also will be writing apology letters to the school officials. We'll also be setting up sessions with a therapist. We've also made some permenant rule changes regarding supervision and bikes.
The update on the charges etc. is that we got the estimate yesterday from the school which Doug promptly went down and paid in full ($4,224.00). We then contacted the police, in turn they contacted the school, again contacted us back to let us know they won't be filing charges after all. As far as they were concerned the damage was taken care of and they were stepping out of it. However, the school has agreed also not to press charges, but they are suggesting Alternative school for Cody. This upsets and worries me, but I don't have a lot to comment on about that yet. We haven't heard any more and have not had a "formal" meeting with anyone regarding it. Plus I just don't know a lot about it. That'll be a post for another day.
We do feel a bit better now that the school has been paid and charges aren't being filed, but it certainly has changed things around here. Ya know, life goes on and we have a baby due in five weeks. We need to deal with this head on and pray and hope that those boys learn a lesson from all of this. The consequences for them have just begun. We have made sure they both know that we love them regardless of what they've done and that we're just disappointed in the actions. We also told them they are going to have to go through some difficult stuff, but that we'll be there supporting them. I really hope they learn from this, but I just don't know. l guess that's where the therapist comes in eh? On a little brighter note, Mom arrived on Tuesday all in one piece. It's great to have her around. It's really kicking "here comes the baby" time into gear. Just over five weeks to go now! Aside from being so stressed out this week, my poor feet/ankles/legs/hands are all swelling up!