You want news? I've got your news.

I have a new title for our life. What?  Don't you have a title for your life? It is like your personal theme song. Here is my life in one new title. Whatever Doesn't Kill You, Just Makes You Crazy. I think I will have it painted on wood in a beautiful and fancy manner and hang it in my house. It will be like those uplifting quotes that people put up in their houses, only true.

Now I know it will be a few weeks before I post this. I will add to it here and there. So bear with the randomness.

I bought a Ergobaby carrier from Zulily a few months ago. It was a great deal, but still more money than I usually spend for that sort of thing. I felt a bit guilty since Meg was our last baby. We have a Baby Bjorn so there was no need to get all above our station with this fancy organic baby carrier. Well as luck would have it I am pregnant again, and so I shall not feel guilt any longer. I will get to use it with two babies. In fact, the $88 I spent is well worth it now. I mean I should have actually planned to get pregnant one more time just to have an excuse to use it for longer. Never-mind the fact we will have to get a bigger car, and a bigger place to live. Now I definitely get $88 worth from my Ergobaby.

You know how you are nursing a baby who isn't eating solids yet and not yet sleeping through the night, and this means you are nursing every 3 hours?  Maybe a 5 hour stretch at night once or twice. Then you start wanting to eat Doritos for a late night snack, but here's the thing, you don't eat late night snacks and you only eat Doritos when your hormones are all up and down. So you eat the Doritos and think nothing of it. Then the next afternoon you just can't help yourself, you walk to the pantry and grab the Doritos while your children are napping and you just eat and eat and eat. Again, not really your normal style.  There must be a reason for this debauchery, and it has to be your period. You wait for it. The next night you go to the Snickers Bar hiding place to discover that your children have snuck into your hiding place and have eaten all your candy!!!!!! They must die, but first you should probably cry because you really wanted that candy. You know there are old chocolate chips in the shelves and you grab a handful but they are gross, but you don't care you need something sweet!!!!!! Still you are waiting for a sign, a reason for all this madness. Then one afternoon you think-- NO, surely not. It isn't possible. You pee on a stick and find out it is possible. You remember you told some friends that as long as your husband planning on getting a vasectomy was a reliable method of birth control then you were all set. Haha- turns out the joke's on you or in this case-- me.

I ended my pregnancy with Meg weighing in at a glorious 163. My goal was to get to 115. I worked my ass off. I worked out hard and often and I got back into my size 2 pants and I got to 118 lbs. I had lines on my stomach that were the beginnings of -well if not a six pack than a 4 pack. My thighs got smaller and I felt good in my body. Turns out that was the problem.

Today I made a pie. It is a blueberry and peach pie. While making this pie smell overwhelmed me. What is it with pregnancy and smell? I couldn't figure out which ingredient or combination of ingredients it was, but I did not like it and no longer wanted to be making that pie. I forged on and with minimal gagging made the pie.  I ate a slice, and it tasted quite good, but now writing about it I can smell the the crumb topping and want to gag again. So I guess I know it was something in the topping.

I have gained weight. Amazing I know-pregnant and gaining weight. Only I don't even know how far along I am and last time, even though my stomach pooched out immediately, I didn't actually gain weight for a few weeks. I figured since  I was nursing a baby and growing a baby that I wouldn't put on actual pounds right away. Wrong.

Every time I breastfeed Meg I feel nauseous. I didn't know this was a thing. Apparently it is. I was nursing Luke while pregnant with Thomas but not every few hours like I am now. Note to Meg:  See how much I love you-I am willing to feel sick just so I can still breastfeed.

I started having cramps. Of course I was worried. But they were just cramps and nothing else. I mentioned them to Pete, took Tylenol, and kept going on with my day. This lasted a few days and yesterday the pain was UNBEARABLE!!!!!!! I thought this is definitely level 9 pain on the smiley face chart. I got shaky, dizzy, felt like I was going to throw up, couldn't pick up Meg, and just wanted to crawl in a corner and rock myself back and forth. I called the OB nurse because I didn't know what was going on. I haven't had an appointment yet, I don't know my due date, and there is just pain. Since it was just cramping-- JUST CRAMPING!!!!!---and I am nursing my teething baby every couple hours I was told I need to up my water intake. Water??  Really? Not drinking enough water is causing me to want to die??? I had already started drinking more because I craved it, but even more?  I would basically have to have a huge gallon jug of water that I drank out of and refilled numerous times all day to drink as much water as they were suggesting. So I got a heating pad, got a lot of water in numerous containers, carried them all upstairs, propped myself up in bed, watched House of Cards, and drank water constantly for 3 hours. You know what? It started working. The amount of water I consumed was not human. Today I have kept it up. Not to quite the same degree, but still far more than I thought humans really needed consume, and I haven't had cramps. Go figure. Water. A crap ton of water.

Hot flashes while in the first trimester? I am thinking being pregnant so soon after having Meg and while still nursing all the time has made me a hormonal mess. I go from one extreme to the other in minutes. I will be freezing cold shivering and then stifling hot and sweating. It is crazy. Also, kind of gross.

First things first-- I had an ultrasound and now know exactly how close in age the babies will be. Are you ready for it?  They will be 13-13.5 months apart!!!!!  I was 6 weeks 5 days at the ultrasound and there was a heartbeat. Awesome. Still a year. I mean -come on!! We are definitely going to be looking into permanent forms of birth control. We are clearly too irresponsible/lazy to handle anything less.

Oh and the due date is March 11. In case people were wondering.

In the past during my first trimester I have relied heavily on scrambled eggs. Not this time.  I made beans, rice, and scrambled eggs wrapped in tortillas for dinner tonight. The pickiest eater in our house, Jack, was actually eating, but Luke, our biggest eater of everything, kept telling me it was disgusting.  I took two big bites and said, " No it isn't. It is good.  Oh no, I am gonna throw up!" Yeah, that didn't go far in convincing him that it was good.

I was going to wait and post this closer to the 10-13 week mark instead of the 8 week mark, but my body isn't shy about sharing the news with the general population. I try to wear baggy clothes and I have Meg strapped to me most of the time, but really one big clue is that I haven't been to aerobics in a couple weeks.  :(  I keep meaning to go even just to have social interaction, but I have been too tired. Of course, letting Meg go about 6 days with an ear infection before picking up on it didn't really help much on the sleep front. I was also going to wait because it is comforting to have that first appointment out of the way but I did have the ultrasound and it looked great. Plus, I have this family thing in a week or so and like I said, you can tell. Maybe they wouldn't know because I could claim I hadn't lost all the baby weight from Meg, but I have been pretty vocal about losing it so....  I just wanted to tell people on my terms and not have them stare at me and wonder.

Free stuff rocks, until sometimes it doesn't

When summer comes to our apartment complex many people move out, and this year our whole strip of townhouses was vacated, minus us of course. We got a free weber charcoal grill out of it, some alcohol bottles that were never opened came our way, and then we saw a mattress propped next to the dumpster so we decided to go for it. Our mattress is 10+ years, covered in baby urine, it dips in certain spots, there are coffee stains, and well, it is old. This mattress was white and the people who left it had only lived here for one year so it was new. Score!  Not wanting to rush into anything we propped it up in our entryway to see if it stunk or if there was stuff growing on it. After a week we thought-ok nice. So then we moved it to the middle of the living room to see if it was comfortable. The boys decided to test out the jump ability of it by using it as a trampoline, wrestling ring, and floor mat for dives off the couch. After all three boys played on it all morning it was time for naps. When Luke woke up he was complaining about his belly hurting, not a stomach ache but the skin hurting. Hmm...  I had him take off his clothes and there was a massive head to toe rash with welts. I checked out the other boys and nothing. Luke's skin is by far the most sensitive, he gets cold sores, rashes, welts, and hives quite often. Thinking over what we had eaten and played with the only new or different thing was the mattress! So while it was a lovely thought that we might get a newish mattress for free, it was not meant to be. Pete and Jack took it back to the dumpster.

Meg has decided that this week will be her week to accomplish quite a lot in life. She has the very tips of her first two teeth poking through the gum, she has learned to scoot, has started to eat rice cereal, and she can get herself into a sitting position.  Side note, the pink ball behind her-free because we found it on campus and there were no other kids around so we took it.

Thomas and Luke were sent outside to play today. They were not happy about it. Can't we just watch tv? Fine, I will just sit in bed. I want to eat. I forced them out. I gave them bowls with water, I gave them hulk fists, I gave them nerf dart guns, and I gave them little wooden catapults. After much pouting Luke and Thomas went for the wooden catapults. They are a little difficult to use and Luke quit almost immediately.  Thomas stuck with it. With just a little guidance from me, he figured it out and was pumped every time he launched one of the tiny bean bags. Of course, I heard him mutter, stupid toy, every time he didn't get it. He is so funny.

Luke decided he was going to use the hula hoop, another free thing we got when people moved away. He had fun getting it to go around once, and wasn't too bothered when that was the only time it didn't fall straight to the ground.

While at granny's we took the training wheels off of Jack's bike. This didn't go over too well, but I told him they weren't going back on. So today we will try again. Hopefully soon I can say he has it mastered. He and Luke both do Tae Kwon Do, and at this point Jack is the one who really loves it. He got his sparring gear recently and is now able to actually participate in the second half of class. He gets to spare with everyone- which means even 1st and 2nd degree black belts who are over twice his size. He can't always get the kicks or the hits in, but one thing everyone has said about him is that he is unshakable and persistent. The smallest boy in the class with the lowest belt rank and he is unyielding in his position and will often back his opponent into the corner.

Oh, and while at G and P's, Jack was given the task of using the punk to light fireworks. He loved it! I was nervous, but he did a good job. The boys also went blueberry picking. Luke learned that he loves frozen blueberries and refuses to eat them any other way.

I am trying to get Meg interested in the mother/daughter selfie, but she isn't very interested. She likes to be solo in her pictures.