For Austin, a few days before his birthday

Every time I'm pregnant, I get this weird paranoia that I'm going to die in childbirth and leave Austin with 1 (or 2 or 3) small children to raise all by himself. I have no doubt that he'll do the best he can, but he works long hours and three small children need a lot of attention. So I go over the worst case scenarios in my head and it's pretty much him giving the children up to someone else to take care of. Hiring a nanny is pretty much out of the picture on his salary, as is full time daycare unless he cuts out a LOT of extra costs, of which there aren't actually that many. We're pretty frugal with our money, so I'm always worried about how he's going to pay for these kids without me around.

I don't actually think I'll die, but, at least for me, in both labors, there was a brief moment where I thought "this is never going to end and this is how I will die." For Asher, it lasted about five minutes, for Elijah it didn't even last as long as it took me to type it out because he came so fast. It's generally when the baby is just about to crown and everything hurts SO MUCH and it has for what feels like forever no matter how long you've been in labor. You KNOW it will end, but part of you can't see that because the pain is so intense you can't see past the here and now.

Austin's a great dad. He's present, which is the biggest thing, and he seems to actually enjoy his kids. So many dads are absent, either physically or emotionally, for various reasons. Maybe they weren't ready to be dads, or never wanted to be in the first place. Maybe they travel for their jobs or are in the military and are sent away for weeks or months at a time. There's lots of reasons for a father to not be around, both good and bad, and luckily, we don't have to deal with any of them. Austin works in another city, but it's only about 45 minutes away, so he's here for dinner every night and does bath time and reads books and plays tag and hide and seek and games with them every night. Or most nights anyway.

Ours is a different type of relationship than you ever see represented on tv or in movies and books. We (or at least I) never had much in the way of that all consuming "gotta have it" passion for each other. Yes, we had that some after he came back from Denmark mostly because he'd been gone the entirety of our dating and we'd only seen each other the equivalent of about 2 weeks in the 10 months we'd been a couple again. I like to say I'm too practical to really allow myself to get caught up in romance and passion and whatnot. I didn't want a guy I couldn't live without, I wanted a guy I could live with and not be devastated if he left.

Austin and I don't remember the first time we met. We were both involved in IVCF (InterVarsity Christian Fellowship) in college and we most likely met at one of the new student mixer type things they had at the beginning of the year. I was aware of who he was because he was in the praise team and played the guitar and had blue eyes (I'm a sucker for blue eyes). He mostly knew who I was because I was new and a girl. He was a sucker for girls.

My first memory of him as an individual was during my spring semester at Tech. I had a class in the math building, which wasn't necessarily all that close to my dorm, but was about midway between our dorms. I was coming out of my class and heading to my room and there he was, just walking down the sidewalk. He recognized me and started walking and talking with me. We got a block or so before I asked if he had a class in my direction. He said no, he had some free time and was going to either study or play the guitar or something (I forget what exactly). I pointed out that as it was broad daylight and I knew my way around campus now, he didn't have to walk me to my room, but thanks for being willing to. He looked so startled and disappointed but said "Oh, ok. Bye." and turned and walked away. I thought that was odd but went on my way and didn't give it much more thought.

I didn't really notice him again for about another year. I lived in a house with three other girls and we called our house the Hen House, mainly because four women lived there and we fancied ourselves nurturing, motherly types (and for the number of teenage boys we seemed to feed maybe we were). We were in charge of the Super Bowl party in 2004 and of course I had a cold. It was exhausting and fun and at the end of the night there was a huge mess to clean up. Which no one really wanted to do. My roommates went to bed and I was debating how much to do before going myself when Austin returned with a car full of the aforementioned teenage boys and they did a pretty decent job of getting most of the mess cleaned up. Trash got taken out, furniture got put back in place, dishes got put into the dishwasher and sink to soak. Afterwards, instead of going to bed, he and I stayed up on AIM to talk for a while before I finally gave in and went to bed. We started dating on February 29, about a month later.

I dumped him in July when I realized he didn't really see me for me, just as some idealized version of woman that he'd made up in his mind. I didn't want to be put on a pedestal, I wanted to be an equal. Two years and three total relationships later, I convinced him over international phone call that now that we'd matured and seen what we didn't like in other relationships, I was what he wanted and needed. He took some convincing, but he eventually came around. A year after that we were engaged and then in May of 2008 we got married.

We've always been somewhat practical people. We're equals (I hope) in most everything in our lives: child rearing, finances, major decisions. He doesn't necessarily care what our house looks like or where we go on vacation or what we do when we get there, but I still get his input. The main reason I think we work? We're friends. We actually like each other most of the time. Which is good, considering we've got a third kid on the way.

We support each other and while he's the dreamer and if I say something about "Maybe I could sell a loaf of bread I made" he starts coming up with business ideas. I'm the realist so when he starts talking about when he wins the lottery, I say "Well, if we did, there's a couple things we need to do first: pay off the car, pay off the house, and set up savings accounts for the kids for whatever. Then we can buy you guitars and whatever." Because he usually wants musical type things and I want books and to fix up the house.

Marriage is a give and take. It's balancing what you want with what they want. It's not holding grudges or constantly bringing up past mistakes. The passion wanes with time and familiarity, but hopefully a friendship will last you a lifetime. To find someone you don't mind sitting across the table from for 50 years, someone you don't mind sharing parental responsibilities with, someone you can laugh with and talk to, that's a gem. Getting to watch your husband fall in love with your child the first time he holds him is better than any romantic novel or movie.

So maybe we don't have a passionate romantic fairy tale relationship, but you know what, I'd rather have our reality, that will hopefully last for a lifetime, than a fairy tale that might wane after a few years of watching each other clipping toenails or wearing old holey underwear or any other manner of gross things you witness in a marriage. Instead, we get the romance of children and family holidays and going to the grocery store and picking up dinner on the way home and date nights. That's the best kind of romance.

Right after we started dating in 2004

Literally minutes before he proposed.

At our wedding, in case the white dress didn't tip you off.

Our current family this past June

Our newest addition, coming soon to a crib near us!

What's in a name?

Naming a kid is hard. Between agreeing with your partner, coming up with a name that doesn't randomly rhyme or sound Seussian, and trying to make your little angel stand out, it's rough going. Not to mention when you throw in the opinions, solicited or not, that you get from anyone who you tell.

I'm a lot like my parents in that I thought ahead. My dad had a name selected for his first son long before he met my mom and she for her first daughter. John Anthony Walke and Carylyn were named before they were born. The only thing that changed was the spelling of Carylyn from Carylynne or something else wackadoo like that. 

The rest of us got saddled with whatever popped into their heads. My next brother's middle name was courtesy of the area they lived in at the time, near the Ethan Allen farm. I'm not sure where my youngest brother's name came from. Either way, any of the boys, had they been girls, would have been Laura Louise. 

Having been gypped out of Laura Louise twice, once my dad realized I was a girl, he thought "ok, Laura Louise it is!" Mom said "Oh, no, I don't like that name right now." So Talitha Jane was picked. Dad rebelled, he didn't like Talitha, said it was too difficult (or something) and they compromised and he picked my middle name, Joy. 

As a kid, I really didn't like Talitha. Joy didn't bother me, it seemed kind of kitschy, but whatever. No one called me that except when I was in trouble. I decided I would give my kids names that people could look at and immediately know how to pronounce. 

I liked E names for a while: Edward (thanks for messing that up, Twilight), Ephraim (or Efram), Elijah, Emma, Elizabeth, Eliott, Esther, on and on. I liked Biblical names: Eve, Rebekah, Matthew, Benjamin, Levi, Gideon. I liked family names: Emma Geneva and Oliver Ashmer. I liked old fashioned names like Margaret. 

When I was about 13, I saw Kenneth Branaugh's Much Ado About Nothing and fell in love with the name Hero. My friends thought it was nuts, but I decided about that time that my first two daughters were going to be named Emma Geneva and/or Hero Elizabeth. I couldn't decide which I liked best so felt like I should have two daughters. A few years later, I changed my top two names to something else. 

Cut to meeting and getting serious with Austin. He had no real preference on names, he just had a family tradition of the first son being named A Moritz Mullins. Since our family has a tradition of John "X" Walke, I was ok with that. I don't particularly like Moritz, but I get traditions. 

Once we found out the first baby was a boy, the hunt for the perfect A name began. I decided I loved Ash. Not anything longer to be shortened into Ash, just straight up Ash. We met resistance. People didn't like Ash once we told them where it was from: a movie called Army of Darkness that I grew up loving. The main character is a badass zombie/deadite killer with a chainsaw for a hand. I KNOW! How cool is that character?!

Anyway...other people in our lives didn't like it. A few did, a few were like "Really? Well, ok." And a few were anti Ash. So we started looking for names we could shorten to Ash. I immediately mentioned Ashmer, the middle name of a grandfather a few generations back. Austin didn't like it. I don't remember exactly who brought up Asher, but I really liked it. So Asher was named before we even fully moved to Abilene. An alternate girl's name was tricky, because Austin was thinking we should stick to the AMM for her initials. Mom suggested Annessa May, which was the only name that was moderately ok. I like May better than Maurissa, Austin's suggestion. Thankfully, we got Asher, and we were very pleased. 

Ash - Housewares

Then there was baby #2. A girl's name was either of my top two picks. A boy's name was harder. I didn't like ANYTHING. Neither did Austin. We pulled out the family trees and started going through them, looking for a cool family name from my family to give the baby. We decided that a first name would be from the Bible, so settled on either Elijah or Ephraim. And then we hit the middle name jackpot: Blackstone. We announced our two names and were again met with "oh I love those!" and "really? Ok." and "No, You're not using that name. It's horrible." which made me want to immediately pick that particular name. We literally decided on Elijah's name about 5 hours before he was born. Since Asher's name was a fandom based name, Elijah's needed to be as well. Elijah is an original vampire on the TV show The Vampire Diaries, a show that I really enjoy. 

Elijah - not a vampire to mess with

And now we've got another baby. I still haven't gotten to use my girl names. I'm dreading having to pick another boy name. I did, however, stumble into a boy name that we both actually really like. It's pretty great, in our opinion. And the number 1 girl's name is also fabulous. But this time, we're not talking. A few people who've paid attention over the past few years will probably guess the girl name and might have a stab at the boy name. But, to avoid the comments about how awful it is, we're not telling anyone our baby's name until he or she is  born. 

Rest assured, though, that both names are
ALSO fandom names of a sort. The boy name is from a book I love and the girl name is from a different book I love and a book Austin and I read together when we were dating. This baby is going to be literary! 

Telling someone you hate the name they have agonized and debated and searched and researched is just hurtful and unnecessary. I know people who have given their children names I personally think are ridiculous. I would never tell them that. "Hey, you know what? X is a terrible name!" No. 

That being said, there are ways of telling a loved one you're not a fan of the name they've chosen. I might MIGHT suggest a more normal spelling for it if they're going with something odd (seriously, how many ways can you spell Amy/Kristen/Ashley/Carolyn/etc?). Think about your kid's future teacher trying to call roll the first few days. Have some pity on them. I got the double whammy with Talitha Walke, so I know that weird spellings and pronunciations and names in general are going to be difficult for the kid their whole life. Think about nicknames (a couple people were certain Asher would be shortened to Ass. Ok.) Think about your child as an adult running for office or being a respected member of society. Is that name going to work for an old person? 

So, come January, our baby will be born and you will know his or her name at that time. Until then, hazard as many guesses as you want. I won't tell you if you're right or not. 

Tetris isn't as much fun with frozen blocks.

I don't like to cook. I'm not bad at it, I just don't enjoy the prep, the cooking, or the clean up afterwards. So I don't do it very often. What I do is bulk cooking.

I'll spend a couple of days or so once every few months and cook a ton of our favorite recipes and freeze them to reheat later on. I've been doing it long enough I have my own little binder of freezer tested recipes (and a few that I haven't personally tested but found online). So I go through every time, pick out a few (or way more than a few) and hit the store. It's several long days where we typically eat out because I'm so exhausted I don't want to do anything, but at the end, we have a freezer full of food. If you've got the stamina and the means to do so, I definitely recommend bulk cooking.

This past week, my laptop got broken to the point I couldn't really use it. I was already planning on doing some bulk cooking for the fall and hopefully into the winter after the baby is born, this just took away any reason not to. I like to watch Hulu on my laptop while I'm cooking or cleaning, but luckily my kindle will stream Hulu, so I was all set.

I started off by picking my recipes. I picked:

Pesto Sauce
Alfredo Sauce
Spaghetti Sauce (has meat)
Marinara Sauce
Tomato Basil Sauce
Daddy's Favorite Meatloaf
Parmesan Meatloaf
Meatballs (PM recipe, just balled)
Meatballs in Sour Cream Sauce
Baked Chicken Bacon Alfredo
Lasagna
Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas
Crock-Pot Beef Stroganoff
Beef Chili
Cinnamon Rolls
Baked Lemon Garlic Pepper Chicken
Garlic Rosemary Chicken
Kick'n Chicken
Roasted Garlic and Herb Chicken

Yes. That's a lot of recipes. WAY more than I typically would do, but...like I said, I want it to last us a while. We have a few premade frozen entrees (lasagna, ziti with meatballs, etc). We eat lots of pasta around here, so homemade sauce is great. Plus, I personally think it tastes better than jarred stuff. Since I've been cooking for myself, I've not actually found a good jarred sauce that I like the taste of.

I use spreadsheets for tons of stuff because I'm weird, and bulk cooking is no exception. I created a matrix to calculate how much of each ingredient I needed to buy and to see what I had on hand that I didn't need to buy. Then I created my grocery list by checking prices what I could online at Sam's and did some pre-prep work. That involves pulling everything out of the pantry that I'll be using and putting it somewhere in some kind of organized manner. I also go ahead and put what I've got together. So, for all the seasoned chicken dishes, I put the oil and herbs into bags and put them aside or in the fridge. I did most of this on Wednesday evening, since we had the house cleaned Wednesday morning.

Most of the time, buying in bulk is the best way to go. Sam's has the best prices on meat and produce that I have found, especially when you're buying 20 pounds of meat and 10 pounds of onions. So Wednesday, I headed to HEB. I haven't been to HEB alone with the boys since getting pregnant, so this was an experience. It was crowded but not horrible. We managed to be in and out with just about everything we needed from HEB in about an hour and a half. Considering we spent nearly $200, that's pretty good. That's amazing with two "helpful" little boys. We got compliments on their behavior, and it was good, so I was pleased. Tired when we got home, but pleased. That night, I made pesto and while I intended to make a double batch, I overbought on the fresh basil and ended up with a sextuple batch. Which is fine because it's good and we like it. I should have realized this was an omen for how the rest of my week was going to be.

Thursday morning, I loaded the boys up and we hit Sam's. Since we have a business membership, we can shop early, which is great. Not many other shoppers to contend with, just workers cleaning and setting up. I wasn't feeling great when we left the house, so by the time I had a cart full of 25 pounds of ground beef, 6 pounds of stew meat, 4 rotisserie chickens, and 20 pounds of chicken, plus sundry other items, I was exhausted. I was a little unsure of whether or not I could even get it in the car, let alone home and into the house. I did luck out in that most of the beef was short sale, so I got it at an even greater reduced rate than if I'd bought it at HEB. In and out in about an hour and a half and spent just over $300, though at least half of it wasn't bulk cooking related, but replacement of items we used up and/or needed. Buying in bulk CAN be expensive. Ish. It evens out in the end.

I managed to drag in all the fresh stuff that needed refrigeration and shoved it in the fridge. It was so full I knew I had to start cooking immediately, but I also needed to rest. I accidentally locked Asher on the front porch while taking a little rest and Elijah was trying valiantly to let him in. Neither seemed upset, just more "well, ok. This is our life now. Mom locks us out." In my defense, I didn't realize he'd run outside.

After a rest, I started on the spaghetti sauce and marinara. The marinara cooks in the crock pot, so that was easy. The hard task of the day was chopping the onion. We have an "EZ Onion Chopper" that is not easy. I literally sat on it to get it to chop. Frustrating. But, I got it done and had two large stock pots of spaghetti bubbling away on the stove, filling the house with delicious aromas. While that was going on, I assembled the beef stroganoffs using the pre-prepped bags. Same with some of the Sour Cream Meatballs. I had some meatballs left over from the last time so I threw them into a bag of sour cream sauce and got it ready to go into the freezer.

That night, Mom and Caleb came over for dinner and Mom and Austin ended up prepping all the chicken for me. I hate touching raw chicken so that was nice. Plus it made Friday a lot easier.

Friday through Tuesday I did something every day, not so much that I completely wiped myself out, but enough that I was extremely tired every day. Another trip to HEB was needed when I realized a couple things I thought I had enough of I actually didn't. The dishwasher was running almost constantly and the stove was on for hours every day. Not many big messes were made and my boys were super helpful when they could be: by staying out of the kitchen and only coming in for drinks and when I called them to lunch. Slowly my fridge emptied and my freezer filled. And then my freezer was full and I still had about 3 more recipes to go. So I had to do some freezer tetris.

I also had to do some tweaking in my chili recipe. Got rid of the beer, added some tomato paste, etc. And apparently I put enough chili powder in it that it's spicy enough for Austin, which means it'll blow the top off anyone else in our family. I'll figure that out later. I haven't done the cinnamon rolls in the freezer before, so that's an experiment, too. One pan I par-baked and one I froze before the final rise. Labor Day morning, we'll get them out and finish both off and see if either method worked out to result in delicious home made cinnamon rolls or if it's a bust.

At the end of everything, I've got a massive amount of food. Like, holy cow, it's unfortunate I'm not in the mood for any of it because I've been dealing with it for so long. My cost is a little skewed per entree because I didn't put in costs for items I had on hand (staples for us include olive oil, flour, seasonings, sugars, cheddar cheese, etc). I buy reusable pans and containers to help cut down on the cost a little and while I did have to buy several this time around, they cost about a dollar a piece but those were not included in the cost, either.

My final totals came out to:

6 cups of Pesto Sauce - $2.97/cup
13 pints of Alfredo Sauce - $2.65/pint (4 went into the Chicken Bacon Alfredo Casseroles)
6 quarts of Spaghetti Sauce - $5.43/quart (2 went into the lasagna)
4 quarts of Marinara Sauce - $1.22/quart
5 quarts of Tomato Basil Sauce - $5.76/quart
7 mini tins of Daddy's Favorite Meatloaf - $1.71 each tin
5 mini tins of Parmesan Meatloaf - $3.19 each tin
3 bags of Meatballs - $5.31/bag (1 went into the meatballs in sour cream sauce)
4 bags of Meatballs in Sour Cream Sauce - $1.19/bag (1 bag of meatballs went into 3 bags of sauce)
5 pans of Baked Chicken Bacon Alfredo - $9.57/pan
2 pans of Lasagna - $8.61/pan
5 pans of Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas - $3.20/pan
6 bags of Crock-Pot Beef Stroganoff - $5.35/bag
4 quarts of Beef Chili - $2.93/quart
2 pans of Cinnamon Rolls - $.76/pan (I had everything but eggs and cream cheese for the frosting)
2 bags of Baked Lemon Garlic Pepper Chicken - $3.76/bag
2 bags of Garlic Rosemary Chicken - $3.76/bag
2 bags of Kick'n Chicken - $3.76/bag
2 bags of Roasted Garlic and Herb Chicken - $3.76/bag

Some of this is going to my sister, who will reimburse me plus a little for the time and energy I put into everything. But, my total cost was just under $300 for the ingredients I bought specifcially for cooking and I ended up with something like 73 entrees/sauces. Not bad for a weeks' work and exhaustion like none other.  I feel much better about the coming fall and winter and for after the baby's born. I'll have to replace some of the stuff, I know, before he/she is born in January, but I won't be dumb enough to try another week long cooking spree like this. Unless someone wants to come work with me.

Dry goods I already had plus stuff I got at HEB. 

Different angle

Fresh stuff purchased at HEB plus on hand. 

Meat and miscellaneous purchased at Sam's plus some I already had. 

The only "in process" picture. This is what 12 pounds of tomatoes looks like chopped up. That bowl is massive. It was 8 quarts of tomatoes. 

Frozen dinners and sauces! The white blocks on the right center pile are cream cheese for the beef stroganoff. In my experience, cream cheese freezes and thaws just fine when you're planning on melting it in the crock pot. I've seen on websites not to do it, but since we don't notice a taste or texture difference, I buy the giant block at Sam's, portion it out, and freeze chunks like this for throwing in the crock pot. 

Another angle. Please ignore my dirty kitchen. 

Jammed into the freezer. The top shelf and bottom drawer are older stuff and staples like cheese (also freezes fine. If shredded, thaws just perfectly), butter, frozen fruits and veggies (make sure to lay fruits flat and to par boil veggies that need it. I researched how to freeze certain veggies and have had good experiences so far), etc. 

The door of sauces. It took long enough to get everything in and out and photographed they got frosty. 

Thoughts at 17 weeks

Again the disclaimer that not every pregnancy is the same, this is just reflections on my own. 

The second trimester is where it's at. No more morning sickness (yay!), not too huge yet (yay!), my appetite has returned so I'm beginning to gain weight again (....yay). I'm still beyond tired most days and if I don't drink enough water, I'll stand up and before I get two feet need to sit down or risk falling over, but those are trivial matters. I solve them by dozing in the same room as the boys (or napping when they're locked in their room and thus less likely to kill themselves) and drinking so much water I feel like I live in the bathroom. 

I was very fortunate with the boys not to have heartburn ever, something a lot of my friends had to deal with. On the flip side, they all seem to have babies who look like they're wearing wigs while mine were cue balls. In my opinion, bald beats heartburn any day. Especially when it starts super early in the pregnancy and just gets worse as time goes on. Other things are going to get worse (like shortness of breath and no comfortable position ever), I'd rather not have reflux on top of them. 

I'm 17 weeks now and not so big that I look pregnant with clothes on, just kind of chubby. Like "is she pregnant or just fat? Is that new baby fat or old baby fat?" Which is ok. Because judging from my previous pregnancies, I'll get there. I'll be the "oh, are you SURE you're not having twins?" pregnant lady...or at least I'll feel like I am. I can already lay on my back and see a mound but I haven't lost sight of my feet quite yet. 

One thing that I have lost is restful sleep. I have to roll over in slow motion at night or it feels like someone is pulling my stomach off, a very unpleasant sensation. So a roll that takes normal people a split second takes me a couple. Its a whole process. But at the end of it I can go back to sleep instead of lay there and wonder in my half awake stupor if I just killed my baby by rolling from my left side to my right side because holy cow does that not feel good. 

The second trimester is good. The aches and pains from ligaments stretching and getting used in ways they haven't in a while, the exhaustion and sleeplessness, the dehydration, it's all easy to handle. I can work through it. I can function as a human being and a mom with them. But I know that the road ahead of me is going to get harder, so I'm bracing myself. It's all good, because at the end, I get a screaming, writhing, messy, vaguely disgusting, beautiful miracle to hold and snuggle and kiss and sometimes dislike. And really, that's the best part of pregnancy: when it ends. 

I don't have a thigh gap and that's (mostly) ok

Here's some shocking information most women won't share: I'm 5'6" and before I got pregnant I weighed about 145 pounds. And I wasn't fat.

Shocking, right?

Today's world is so obsessed with weight loss and gain. Everywhere we look, we're being told we aren't thin enough but yet we need to eat massive portions of food and binge watch tv shows and sit in front of our computers. That's messed up.

I've never been overweight, so this is coming from a perspective of someone who used to be PAINFULLY skinny. Like...people thought I was anorexic, then saw me eat and thought I must be bulimic. In my family, we stay skinny until about puberty, then we put on a bit of weight, then we get married and all hell breaks loose. As a kid, I saw my parents' wedding picture and had no idea who the couple was because 1 Dad didn't have a beard at 23 and was a beanpole (his mother described him as so thin you could see his spine through his stomach once) and 2 my mom was super thin and had long hair. She was more recognizable, so I figured her out after studying it for a bit but they had to tell me it was Dad.

My parents dieted and exercised for years. Mom actually got back down to a slim size after Caleb was born by walking at the Family Life Center and doing Medi-Fast, a supplement meal diet plan she recommended to her patients. Dad would jog every morning and occasionally do Medi-Fast to keep his weight in check. But when his knees gave out and she had a couple issues pop up, the weight piled on. This is probably my future. And I'm ok with that.

I never liked the way my body looked. I think most women are in that boat. Something was either too big or not big enough or just weird looking, so in high school I hid it with clothes that were a couple sizes too large. It worked for me. I wasn't heavy by any stretch of the imagination, but I didn't see that. I saw the small (minuscule in retrospect) pooch of my stomach and thought everyone else was focused on that, too.

In college I put on about 30 pounds in the first semester. Apparently I can be an overachiever about some things. I was so horrified to go to a doctor's appointment in January and hear that I weighed 140 that I immediately decided to control my eating habits. I was hiking all over campus with a heavy backpack, so I knew I was getting exercise and that wasn't the issue. It was the 4 or 5 sodas a day I drank and the two or three helpings of fatty dorm foods or fatty fast foods I was eating. So I cut those things out, started cooking for myself more (and that meant eating a lot less) and by the next year I was back to 120. A reasonable weight for a 20 year old who's 5'6" with my build.

I graduated college like that and started working in a job where I ran up and down the stairs in a 5 and 4 story building in heels every day, ate whenever I could whatever I could and slept crazy hours. At my thinnest, I got down to 105. My friends were a little concerned because I was so skinny. I loved it because I weighed less. I still had that damn stomach pooch, so I still felt like part of me was wrong.

On my wedding day, I weighed 117 and, if I do say so myself, looked pretty good. I wore Mom's wedding dress and it was a tad snug so I had to wear what was basically a girdle to flatten things and squish things. Even then, it wasn't terribly comfortable so I bought another dress for the reception.

I was on birth control, cooking for my husband every night, pretty sedentary since I'd quit my job...so my weight ballooned. To 135. Horrors. I hated the way I looked again. Pooch was bigger, thighs and hips and butt were bigger, I felt awful. I figured "well, once I start having babies, I'll breastfeed and that'll help with weight loss, as will chasing the kids around. I'll be fine once I'm off the pill."

Silly me. I am one of the few "fortunate" people who gains weight while breastfeeding. I weighed around 165 at the end of both pregnancies and immediately after was about 20 pounds lighter. Once breastfeeding was abandoned, I tried dieting by tracking my caloric intake and eating less in a day. I took the baby(ies) on walks and tried to be more active. And my weight went nowhere. I think my bottom line post babies is going to be about 140ish. MAYBE 135 if I really get into the whole weight loss thing.

These days, I don't diet, I just do portion control, usually at home (you better believe if I'm buying it at a restaurant I'm eating as much as I can.) It helps me and I think it would help others if they'd be consistent, but it's hard to do. If there's still food and your stomach is still saying "feed me" and it tastes good...yeah, you want to eat it.

I consistently felt bad about how I looked until one day, I hit me. I was wearing the wrong clothes. When you weigh 140, you can't and shouldn't wear a shirt and pants you wore when you weighed 120. It's just not a smart choice. OF COURSE it doesn't look good on you. It wasn't made for your body. Not your current one anyway. So I went out and bought clothes that fit me now (or before I got pregnant. work with me) and I felt tons better. I buy clothes that fit the body I have not the body I want and I'm much more comfortable in my own skin.

It's probably a maturity thing, or maybe it's a laziness thing, but I've come to accept that this is my body. I've created life with this body, carried it to term and delivered it naturally. It's got dimples in weird places and fat and cellulite and a few light pale stretchmarks and of course I wouldn't mind some things being smaller, but overall, it's a good body. It's done what I've asked it to do (except lose weight) and sometimes things I didn't think it capable of doing (anyone who's had a vaginal birth knows EXACTLY what I'm talking about. ow). It has comforted my children, fed them (somewhat), loved them, sheltered them, and been their jungle gym. It may not look the best to outsiders, but to my little family, it's pretty good.

So yes, after this baby, I'll wish I was back into the 130's weight wise. I'll occasionally hate the way my thighs touch. I'll get frustrated with my big butt. But overall, I'll let it be because it has been through a lot in the past 30 years, especially the last 4.

That's my advice: dress for the body you have, not the body you want. You'll be more confident and comfortable in your own skin if your clothes fit and look good on you. Trust me.

If you were 5 and these were your parents, would you recognize them? lol

I'm also 6 inches taller than Mom...so that made things interesting. 

Palm Sunday this year with my two body wreckers. 

Notes from the belly: Week 10

Disclaimer: Nothing I post about my pregnancy is intended to be a blanket statement about ALL pregnancies. Every pregnancy is different, even my three have been different. So please take no offense.

The more pregnancies you have, the sooner everything happens. You start to show a little sooner, you feel pains a little sooner, since you know what to feel for, you feel baby moving a little sooner. My nausea came within days of being at the exact same time with each one, so that's a nice consistency. I had two colds with each of the boys, one in the first 2/3rds, one in the last trimester.

I'm currently on cold #1 and at 10 weeks pregnant. I've had a little bump since about 9 weeks. I've had muscle/ligament stretching pains for about 3 weeks (sides of your stomach hurt, like being thwapped with a rubber band). I've felt little flutters that COULD be gas, but I think might actually be little baby thumps saying "hey! I'm here!" which is reassuring. After feeling bad or being actually sick since Mother's Day, it's nice to feel a valid reason for all the crud.

After feeling bad for so long, it's hard sometimes to be nice. If what I really want to do is lay down and read a book or take a nap or watch tv and I have to be at work, upright, being polite and helpful to customers, its hard. And sometimes that gets taken out on the kids a bit. Luckily, my kids are awesome and resilient. I always apologize and kiss them once I've calmed down and I do feel bad, but I keep in mind, this is just a short season of our lives. Eventually, they'll get their mom back and I'll get myself back. And life will be better for a while before the stage hits where I feel like a beached whale and I'm wondering when this kid is going to make her appearance.

I'm using "her" because I can, not because I know. So no one get all excited.

Also, the thumps are reassuring because it helps to calm the paranoia that I have every pregnancy that this one won't happen, that I'll be the first in the line going back several to miscarry. I've read that the worse the morning sickness, the less likely for miscarriage, so I cling to that until I start feeling those thumps, and see and hear that heartbeat on a sonogram. This awful nausea and horrible vomiting have to be worth something and hopefully, it's a good sign my baby is alive and kicking...or at least wiggling, if her legs and arms haven't developed yet.

It is getting better, a little bit at a time. One thing will go away but typically within about 24 hours, another thing takes its place. And life keeps happening: the hail storm, Mom's wedding, Elijah swallowing a nail, damage inspections, Elijah swallowing a penny, a leaky ceiling, someone at work quitting, people taking time off at work right after....everything is moving forward, as life should. It shouldn't stop just because I feel terrible. Though sometimes I wish it would.

A few thoughts on the first trimester

In my experience, the first trimester of a pregnancy is about survival. You feel awful because you're tired, you have no energy, and there's nausea and/or vomiting. You just want to lay down in bed and sleep, maybe with an IV drip so you don't have to attempt to feed yourself. The IV drip is appealing because no food items are yet you have to eat SOMETHING so you and the parasite sucking your life forces away don't starve to death.

This is, for me, the trimester when I think "What the hell was I thinking, wanting to do this on purpose?"

All this is compounded when it's a second or third or more pregnancy. You already have a kid, you knew what you were getting yourself into (anyone who says they forgot is a dirty filthy liar...or just a moron) and you STILL subjected yourself to it, intentionally or not. Having to deal with no energy and horrific nausea while taking care of older children is the pits. Especially if those older children aren't TOO much older, but rather just enough older to still need a lot of help, like still in diapers or potty training.

I can definitely understand when women who are pregnant with a small child already deal with terrible depression. It's hard being pregnant for some of us, and when there's a small person holding you hostage with demands for food, bathroom assistance, attention, entertainment, affection, medical care, and more, it feels infinitely harder.

Asher's pregnancy was 10 weeks of nausea over a trip to Europe, a trip to New Braunfels, a move across the state, a home purchase, and a new job. Luckily, I wasn't working too much so I could rest when I needed to and just lay down whenever I felt bad. I had the lovely experience of throwing up in the international terminal of DFW and over the Atlantic on our way to London, then not being able to eat hardly anything while we were in Paris, which was damn near devastating. My companion was eating amazing sandwiches and drinking wine and trying to be respectful of my patheticness by hiding it a little, which made it a little worse. I do have to say, though, the chocolate eclair I had was AMAZING. And one of the few things I ate.

Elijah's pregnancy was so much sooner than we expected I had a baby in diapers for the entirety of it. His morning sickness didn't last nearly as long because life wasn't so stressful, but I was working 20 hours a week so the whole "lay down when I feel bad" thing wasn't an option. I didn't have any international trips or exciting stories about throwing up all over the place, but I did throw up in a box lid since there was literally no place else to go in time. Asher always found it highly amusing and would laugh when I threw up and was in tears after. Little sadistic turkey.

This time, we waited a little longer to get pregnant. I still have a kid in diapers, but only one and if we'd done the same time frame as before, I'd have had two during morning sickness. So there's a silver lining.

I'm 8 weeks in and the morning sickness is awful. I'm spitting a lot because of mucous (weird, I know) and so of course Elijah copies that. It's both adorable and gross. I finally got on some medication called Zofran which is amazing and knocks out the nausea. Still no energy and tons of exhaustion, but no more nausea! I can function as a human being again!

I'm so tired, though. I seriously could have slept through the mani/pedi/waxing on Thursday before the wedding. And I almost dozed off getting my hair done Saturday. Anytime I sit still, I'm in danger of falling asleep. If there's no reason I shouldn't, I just go ahead and get comfortable and do it.

So, yes, building a baby is hard work. And at first, it kind of sucks because there's no real upside to pregnancy yet. But finally, finally, the light at the end of the tunnel will come: the second trimester.