Wild Sunshine and Lemonade

Welllllllllll maybe only 39, but who’s counting? Somewhere around 37 weeks I get really tired of being pregnant. I’ve lost all ability to be productive. I can’t sleep. I feel huge ALL the time. Even my maternity clothes stop fitting and I have to do laundry every 2 days. Oy! At least I forget all about these things in a few months and remember the good parts.

And the heat! In NC, March has been a heatwave. I mean days in the low 80s… which to me feels like 140 degrees.  I’m burning up. Good thing I’ve never had to endure a summer baby, I don’t think I’d survive.

How am I feeling these days? Let’s see, everything hurts as it stretches and gets ready for delivery (which is actually pretty amazing). There are approximately 1,000 things I want to be doing outside but cannot because they involve heavy lifting, shoveling, etc. I have two kids who have been sharing a room for 1.5 months and have yet to stop talking to one another before 9pm, so both are constantly sleep deprived and cranky. This mama is losing patience!

Yet through it all I’m trying hard to be aware that these are the last days to freely play outside, climb trees, and go hiking without the extra time to bundle a baby/change a diaper. At least for a little while 🙂 So I’m enjoying this time with my two littles as much as possible.

And we did manage to finally install our kitchen backsplash (more on that in a future post), so I can’t say I’ve been totally unproductive.

Gender: my guess is still a girl. Weight: 40lbs gained (5 lbs less than the other two at this point). Cravings: Salad and citrus. Can’t wait for: running again!

This is such a short anecdote, but I’m much better at typing things out than writing them down and I don’t want to forget the silly things!

We had spaghetti and meatballs for dinner the other night. Sawyer didn’t finish all of his, and soon we got to goofing around with daddy in the other room. Sawyer disappears, comes back in and throws his last meatball at daddy’s head, then laughs hysterically. See this– this is his I’m gonna do something crazy look. Watch out!

Umm… how do I keep a straight face? Yeah, I didn’t. Neither did John. I think we eventually told him not to do it again. Gotta love a 2 year old!

Mom-of-the-year,

I love naming babies. But I find it’s so much easier to come up with names I love when I’m not pregnant. Throw an actual baby into the mix and suddenly those names are either vetoed by my traditional-minded hubby or I’m suddenly thinking there must be something better or more ideal out there.

Add to this that baby #3 is a surprise, and we now have to go in with two names. Yikes – me and my first world problems! We have our boy name picked. But for a girl, it’s a real toss up. I have always loved Larkin for a girl, although it seems a wildly unpopular name choice on the baby name forums. Hazel was in the top for a long time. Then there’s my love affair with Indiana/Indie. Even Wilder has been a frontrunner. And don’t forget about River, which was probably close to my #1 girls name before Kelly Clarkson used it.

Good thing we have ~7 weeks to go, since my guess is that this baby is a girl. Fortunately we have two potential family names to use as a middle name: Mathilda or Eleanor.

Anyone else only seem to struggle with girl names?

Long about this time every year, in the dead of winter, I start daydreaming.

• I dream of open fields of green grass and their fresh cut smell
• I dream of big blue skies instead of being surrounded by stark naked trees
• I dream of a cute white farmhouse — a slight downsize from our current home even though our family is still growing (tiny house junkie here)
• I dream of summer days splashing in hoses in bright sunshine followed by summer nights around a firepit with a sky full of stars
• I dream of soft sounds of a horse, a few goats, and enough chickens to feed our weekly 4-5 dozen egg consumption.
• I dream of rows of grapevines and the smell of fermenting grapes as we stomp bucket after bucket full, ready to embark on the fine craft of winemaking on a larger scale.
• I even dream of the smell of manure.

I wasn’t raised on a farm, but I grew up near many. I lived an unplugged childhood, running through grass and catching bugs. Don’t get me wrong, we live in a great house in the best neighborhood. But I still dream about open fields and a smalll farm. Maybe someday…

Am I the only one with these winter daydreams? 

PS: maybe the fact that I’m 34 weeks along has something to do with it. Wowzers! Time needs to slow down!

The other day as I stood in the kitchen making lunch for the fam, I made a fairly large pasta bowl of pimiento cheese (hubby was home… he can devour some pimiento cheese). I set it on the table and went on getting the rest of lunch ready. When I turned back around, the 2 year old had climbed onto the table, was on all fours, head in the pimiento cheese bowl, LICKING IT with pure happiness.

I stood there in awe. “Sawyer! What are you doing? You’re not a cat!” (we do have a stubborn white cat who is forever contaminating unattended food bowls).

Sawyer looked up at me with a grin and said…. “meow.”