The Queen's Rambles

I am going to try to sneak in an entry this morning even though I probably should be getting Erik some lunch before school. In fact, why am I writing this? If he doesn’t eat, he’ll be grouchy. Damn. This will have to be continued later. Mike is in the shower and my mom has the baby, so I guess I have to do more than sit on my ass and make myself happy.

Later. . .

Mom and Mike left me! They went to take Erik to school and go buy fried chicken at the Amish market. I hope fried chicken agrees with the baby. Thus far dairy and vegetables don’t agree with her. What’s left? Meat? Noodles? Honestly, I’m not even all that hungry, which is bizarre. When I was nursing Erik I couldn’t get enough food down my gullet. Maybe the starvation feeling will set in soon. I know she’s getting enough to eat because she was already up to 10 pounds at her two week appointment. She’s just about outgrown her 0-3 month clothing.

I had a follow-up appointment for my infection on Wednesday. Everything was great. The doctor even clapped her hands in glee. She didn’t think it would clear up so easily. I should have realized it was pretty serious when she told me at the original appointment to be sure to call the emergency line no matter what time of day or night if I was feeling worse or if my fever didn’t go away. If I hadn’t been on percocet, the dummy making drug, maybe I would have realized things weren’t right.

Anyway, I lost 8 pounds in 5 days. I could live with that type of weight loss. I doubt that will continue since I’m losing fluids and such, but it was nice to see the scale down so far. I’m 8 pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight, though I don’t have any muscle tone at all. I’m sure once I get back into BodyPump I’ll pack on some muscle poundage. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.

The baby is starting to act more like a real baby–more fussy and crying. We have to walk her now and jostle her, all those things that kill your back. She is still much easier to handle than Erik and is content to sleep in her Moses basket. Let’s all do a dance of joy for that! She isn’t a fan of the comfort sucking. When she’s done eating, she spits milk all over me and refuses to drink any more. It’s pretty nice, actually. Erik would suck for hours and hours even if he wasn’t hungry. Maybe she’ll wean a lot easier than Erik.

My mom is going home tomorrow and I’m really sad. Everyone thought she’d drive us crazy if she stayed a whole month, but after some rocky times at the beginning everything has been great. I guess the key really is communication. When she would drive me crazy I would just tell her about it and she’d stop the behaviors. Amazing how that works. Ten years ago I never would have dreamed of opening my mouth and saying what bothered me. It is so simple a concept. Why did I ever think it was so hard?

She has been a great help with household chores and Erik. We think we’re tired now, but we don’t know tired. It’s really going to suck when we are finally getting some sleep in the morning (Elsa likes to be awake in middle of the night and sleep all day) Erik is going to wake up and need attention. Isn’t he old enough to make his own breakfast?

Really, my heart is just breaking for Erik. He has loved having his grandma here and is so proud to show her off to all his friends. He’s eating up all the attention and has already informed us that he’s going back to Oregon with her. I know life isn’t fair and spread out families are just a part of the modern world, but I want my boy to have his grandma! Seeing her a few times a year doesn’t cut it. We have no relatives here. He has no idea what having an extended family is like. It feels like we are cheating him out of a lot of love, but what can we do? There are no jobs for Mike closer to my family. I don’t want to live closer to my family–just my mom. I know it will never happen, but I wish she could come out and live with us. It would be a lot better for her and it would make Erik happy. Heck. I could probably even start subbing or something if she was here to watch the kids. She will never agree to such a scheme, though, since she has three other grandchildren who need her much more than Erik needs her. She is the only stability in their lives and I know if any of them have any chance of growing up to be productive citizens it will be because of her influence.

My sister is such a . . . I don’t even know of a word to describe her that would convey my feelings.

On Facebook she told me I better send her mommy back soon because her laundry situation was out of control. Why on earth does a 33 year old woman need to have her mommy do her laundry? I assumed she didn’t have a washer at her place, but my mom says she has one, she just doesn’t know how to use it. I can’t even imagine being healthy, having a laundry room and having the audacity to ask my mom to come to my house, gather up my laundry and take it home to wash. I can’t imagine ever doing that for my children, either. I won’t even get my four year old a glass of water when he’s thirsty. I use that time honored line “You’ve got two legs, go do it yourself.” I guess that sounds pretty harsh, but I am trying to teach him independence.

The other day she called and said that her two older kids (4 and 5) found a can of spray paint in the garage and painted my dad’s old truck pink. “Can you believe they would do that?” she asked, sounding totally shocked. She was even more shocked by my answer, which was DUH! Yes, I can believe it. Erik would love to do something like that. That’s why I supervise my child. I would never let him have the run of my parent’s garage. I’m just glad the kids’ didn’t spray it in their eyes and go blind. If I dwell on her life and the way she treats her kids for too long I’ll explode with anger and sadness so I better shut up now.

Remember when you were a little kid or even a junior high student and you had to write essays about The Future and you were all “Everyone will have a flying car! And our desks will have computers in them! And we’ll be wearing jet packs!”

Did anyone imagine that we could watch streaming TV whenever we wanted on our laptops while we were laying in bed? And that you could instantly update everyone you’ve ever met with your status as a lay-about? And that you could even post pictures of your status practically instantly? Not that I’ve done that former part, but I know I never imagined such a thing as digital photography.

All said, I think our current sci-fi world is better than flying cars.

Have I mentioned that I’m sick of bed rest? Because I am. But there is no way I am going up and down the stairs until I am 100% positive this infection is gone. I don’t want to wind up on bed rest next week after my mom leaves.

I am feeling much better, so that’s a relief. I didn’t realize how sick I was until I wasn’t sick any more. I just thought my red, inflamed incision was part razor burn from the awful dry shave they gave me and part allergic reaction to the tape. I’m not so bright sometimes.

We’ve started using cloth diapers again now that Elsa’s diaper rash is gone. So far none of us are impressed. I hope it gets better or I am going to go cry myself a river. I do not like leakage. Mike does not like bulkiness. My mom does not like running the dryer for 150 hours a day (it is raining, so no line drying for us).

Hopefully we will learn how to do it faster and better without as much leakage as the weeks go by. I guess you can’t really judge something like that by the first few days, though it seems silly to think that diapering a baby requires a learning curve.

What else?

A big fat nothing!

I think I may have just made my YouTube premiere. I looked out the window and noticed the neighbor boy and his friends are making a video of twirling their rifles around. I sincerely hope the camera didn’t pan up to my window. No one needs to see my make-shift receiving blanket bra with my boobies hanging all akimbo. There are no pads think enough to contain the leak of these engorged boobs. At least things are rock hard and gravelly any more, but it will still be awhile before the supply and demand even out.

Oh man! I was just clicking over on Facebook and noticed that one of my former teacher co-workers had a comment from one of my former students, so I had to click through to see her profile. I feel very old. One of my silliest, most immature freshman has a child older than Erik. And she still looks silly and immature. Which, I suppose, explains why she has a kid older than Erik. Silly and immature can be fun and innocent, but she was always manipulative, bratty and searching for something that didn’t seem to exist.

Have I ever mentioned that I’m glad I’m no longer a teacher?

Just imagine how disjointed this post would be if I was still taking my percocet. I’m trying to wean myself off it and have been pretty ok today. That stuff makes me dumb as a rock. Mike and my mom find it both funny and frustrating. They come in and ask me basic questions and I can only come up with one answer: “I don’t know.” They think I should know stuff, but my brain is just a blank. I can’t remember anything. I would not make a very good drug addict, but I guess drug addicts like drugs because they like that disconnect from reality.

I just want chocolate. That’s the only drug I need.

Everything was going so well I should have known the other shoe would drop.

I have an infection in my belly. I am not sure how it all works, but all I know is I’m in incredible pain. Way, way more pain than I was in even the day of the c-s. I even called the doctor, which is something I never do.

I’m now on antibiotics and have a follow-up appointment next week. She even gave me another bottle of percocet to see me through. I was afraid she would just accuse me of being a drug seeker, but that didn’t happen. Probably because everyone watched the tears stream out of my eyes as I s-l-o-w-l-y made my way back to the office. I could barely move.

I am under strict orders to keep to my bed, keep my feet up and my incision site exposed to air. Not exactly comfortable, but if it will help I will do it. Not that I am going it this moment, but I am going crazy from not writing. I need to write daily. Obviously that hasn’t been happening.

Thankfully my mom is here another week and Mike just started his four week vacation so I am well taken care of. I just feel bad for Erik. He is all about his grandma, but he is also acting out really badly and I know he misses his normal mommy. I’m doing what I can to alleviate that, but it isn’t much.

When my mom first got here she thought he was the sweetest, most angelic child. Ha! She has seen the light and is getting pretty annoyed with him. He is testing every limit she sets for him and is trying to get the better of her at every opportunity. She doesn’t have the patience to deal with him, but she’s doing her best. I want her to read 1-2-3 Magic, but she “doesn’t need to read a book to know how to deal with children.” I will never understand that attitude. People have done research and have good ideas! Read a few books! You might learn something.

At least she has been ok with me nursing Elsa. She hated it when I would nurse Erik but I guess she’s over that.

Elsa still doesn’t look like an Elsa to me. Elsa should have blonde hair and pale skin. My baby has dark hair and a darker complexion. She is B@dorek through and through and will never give off that Scandinavian Elsa vibe. I want to re-name her Jolene but Mike thinks I am totally nuts and won’t even entertain the idea. I can’t say I blame him, but seriously. She is not an Elsa.

I guess I better go and climb back in bed. I hope the antibiotics kick this thing out of the park sooner rather than later. I can’t believe how shitty I feel. My c-s recovery was so easy with Erik. I never imagined this would happen even though I knew it was a possibility.

I think I better go get my tubes tied right away. I can’t go through another recovery like this. Elsa is such a sweet, easy going baby that I can see why people look at their baby and go “awwwwww, we should have another one!” I never understood that with Erik. I looked at him and though “never, never, never again.” Not that I didn’t love him, but he was a lot of hard work.

One of my biggest regrets with Erik’s babyhood was not getting newborn pictures. We are both cheapskates by nature and it didn’t really seem necessary since we were taking about ten million pictures a day. But in my little mommy heart I really wanted the professional, curled up little baby pictures.

I wasn’t about to make that mistake twice.

True, she was only a week old, but I wasn’t going to put it off and miss my opportunity.

The good: Post-Easter is not a popular time for pictures. We were the only customers and we ended up with a fabulous photographer. I know it can really be potluck at Penny’s, but now I have the name of the woman who did our pictures and will request her in the future. She spent over two hours with us, trying to get some good shots.

The bad: My children.

Elsa hates to be naked and I love the naked baby pictures so she spent a lot of time screaming.

Erik. Well. Let’s just say the boy is lucky I didn’t find a willow switch and beat him bloody. My original plan was to do the pics while he was at school, but I was scared we would run out of time if there was a big crowd. Sibling pictures are nice, of course, but he can be a little butt head sometimes. Only this time? He was more than a little butt head. He was a giant asshole.

We were trying to do Elsa pictures first and every time we would get her settled or sleeping he would purposely make a loud noise. Finally my mom took him out. You can’t even imagine how angry I was getting.

Then we did the sibling pictures and he refused to cooperate. First he refused to take his shirt off until we bribed him. What the hell? The kid refuses to keep his clothes on at home. I know he was just jealous because he wasn’t the star of the show, but I was having a hard time feeling any sympathy for him.

The photographer had the patience of a saint. I was ready to pack him up and send him out to sit in the van with grandma, but she kept working with him even when he was being totally contrary and doing exactly the opposite of everything she asked him to do.

Here’s a perfect example. She had his hands over Elsa’s tummy and told him to hold it there. She counted to three and as soon as she said three he let go. It may look funny, but it was most definitely not.

By the time it was my turn for photos my hair was flattened and my make-up was drained. I was a sweaty, tired mess. I really over did it yesterday and paid the price in pain.

In other news, I did nothing today. I am so, so grateful for my mom. She’s done everything for me today including Erik care, diaper changes and washing all my bedding. She just did my bedding yesterday, but I have a serious problem. I am totally engorged and one breast leaks so much that even with several receiving blankets wrapped all around it, my bed gets soaked with milk. I do not enjoy the smell of sour milk while sleeping. I hope the milk supply evens out soon because I am pretty sick of rock hard breasts and leaky boobs. My feet are still swollen, too, and it is just about on my last nerve. I don’t know how much bigger they can get before my skin splits open.

Things are still going great with Elsa. She sleeps for hours at a time in her bassinet, which is just incomprehensible to me. Last night I made Mike get up and make sure she was still alive. He stood over her forever before answering me and I was getting panicked. If it didn’t hurt so much to jump out of bed, I would have hurdled right on over there. She continues to be non-screamy and I continue to wait for the other shoe to drop. She was awake for three hours this morning, just sitting around in her bouncer or on our laps. Life doesn’t seem to hopeless when your baby is happy. Erik’s screaming really took a lot out of me.

And now I better take advantage of her early bed time and get my butt into bed. No telling what time she will have her waking hour tonight.

Sleep sounds really good right now, but I stripped the bed so don’t have anywhere to sleep. With all my hot sweats, the room was starting to smell like a feral animal den. Don’t you wish you lived with me?

My mom said I could go nap in her bed. No offense to my mom, but no thanks. I’m too particular about where I sleep.

Things are going well over here, though we are all pretty tired. Elsa is a wonderful baby so far. She only cries hysterically when we change her diaper or she has gas pains. I can’t blame a girl for that. We are able to put her in her bouncer, Moses basket and bassinet for long periods of time both when she is awake and asleep. I didn’t know you could just put a baby down and have the baby smile and look around. She is quite content to take in the world around her. Last night she was wide awake from 3-4 am, but she never cried at all. It’s not exactly fun to be up at that hour, but I can’t really complain. It is pretty easy to deal with a happy baby, even at a late hour. It’s the screaming I’ve been dreading.

She had her first doctor’s appointment today and has her first prescription. Poor dear has a yeasty diaper rash already. I knew the rash was getting worse instead of better, but didn’t even consider it might be yeast. I hope the prescription clears it up quickly.

We started cloth diapers, but only one type actually fits her and we only have about 8 of them. The others are all too big, so we put cloth diapering on hold until she is a little bigger and until we are no longer using diaper cream (since it will ruin the cloth diapers). I kind of regret buying a few of each kind. As it stands now, I wish we had a whole bunch of Rump-a-Rooz. Maybe the others will be ok after she grows a little bit.

+++++
Several hours later, and I’ve taken a nap and am ready for bed. But! I posted a few pictures on Flickr and Facebook for those playing along at home. We have newborn pictures scheduled for tomorrow. I really regret not getting professional newborn pictures of Erik so I’m making sure I get them with her. I love pictures of little naked, curled up babies.

I’m home! But I’ve not been in the mood to blog. Imagine that.

We got home yesterday thanks to a doctor who actually listened to me. Shocking! I got up before the doctor showed up and combed my hair, put on some real pajamas and sat in the rocking chair instead of laying around in the bed. Once she arrived I begged her to let me go home so I could get some much needed real rest and heal faster. Once she examined me she agreed that I could go. I was so, so relieved. The thought of another 24 hours at the hospital, sitting around in a bed that was killing my tailbone was almost more than I could stand.

It took forever to be discharged because we had to wait for Elsa’s doctor, but we were home by 2:30 yesterday. I did discover that getting into and out of a real bed was extremely painful, but I survived and got a lot more rest. No one came in at 2 am to weigh the baby. No one wanted to draw my blood at 4 am. No alarms sounded. I didn’t have to worry about dropping the baby out the side of the hospital bed. Home is good.

We are all pretty tired, but doing well. I need to take more pictures. We’re totally falling down on that job. Poor second child is already getting the second child treatment.

Poor first child is already getting the “sleep deprived grouchy mother” treatment. I got pretty mad at him this morning when he wouldn’t listen to me and started whapping him with Elsa’s quilt. Bad, bad mommy. After school I tried to make it up to him and took him upstairs with a maze book–no grandma and no Elsa–and spent some time with just him. He seemed to really need that.

I know exactly why I exploded at the boy this morning. My neighbor came over to see if she could have a big glass of ice before she mowed the lawn. I had no problem with that, but then she kept talking and talking and talking. She and my mom got on a roll about the drug house down the street and I am just SO FREAKIN’ TIRED of hearing about it! My mom wants to talk about it constantly. Yes, I know there is a drug house down there. Yes, they need to have their kids taken away. Yes, it is a menace. But what the heck am I supposed to do about it? I’m tired of hearing about it.

Anyway, this lady wouldn’t leave and her and my mom were having a mighty fine time bitching about the people down the street and I just wanted to be left in peace. I shouldn’t have taken it out on Erik, but I did. I guess he’s over it. I’ll have to do better tomorrow.

Other than that I’ve been on a very even keel, emotionally. I remember being a total mess with Erik, but I haven’t had any crying jags yet. Thus far she’s been a much easier baby with very little screaming *knock on wood* It probably helps that she has much more relaxed parents.

I have been really shocked by her appearance. I was expecting another mini-Mike just like Erik. Instead I got a mini-sister. It’s so weird to be nursing my baby, looking down and seeing my sister’s face look up at me. I still am amazed by her dark hair. It’s not a huge amount, but it is way more than Erik ever had. Of course, it will probably fall out and her real hair will grow in, but you never know.

I don’t think she really looks like an Elsa. I wanted to re-visit the name but Mike thought I was nuts. Perhaps I should have mentioned it before he called his family and told them the name.

So there you go. My thoughts are really disjointed and I probably need to go to bed and get some sleep, if sleep is even possible. The percocet makes me really dopey, as if I needed an excuse.

Introducing Elsa Kyrene! She was born at 1:22 pm. She weighed in at 8 lb 14 oz and 19.5 inches long. She’s chunky and short. Very, very chunky! She won’t even fit into the hat they provide and the ped said we need to get the next size up in diapers. I have a feeling our drawer of newborn clothes needs to be cleaned out ASAP.

Things have went pretty well today, other than an almost two hour delay in the morning. The mother in front of us wasn’t numbed by her spinal so had to be knocked out completely. Poor woman! That delayed everything, but at least my c-section went exactly as planned and everything has been good.

Elsa is nursing like a champ and sleeping really well in her bassinet. We’re trying to put her in it as much as possible so she doesn’t get used to being held 24/7 like a boy I could name.

Not much else going on. I’m exhausted and groggy and don’t have much to say.

Click through the picture for a few more. We didn’t get any really good ones today. I need to train Mike to take LOTS of pictures, then we have more to pick from.

I went to the hospital for my blood work today. I had a paper saying I should go straight to the lab, so I didn’t think it would be a very intense day. Ha! I should have known better.

I get there and they tell me that I have to go register downstairs. Why didn’t my paper say that?

I wait and wait and wait some more down in the waiting room and finally get my turn after over an hour of waiting. There were only four people ahead of me. There has to be a more efficient system.

I pre-registered several weeks ago so thought it should go quickly, but no. No one had ever processed my pre-registration. I was in the room watching the lady clack around on her keyboard for at least 30 minutes. I have no clue what she was doing. At least she was very apologetic about the situation, but that didn’t make me feel much better since we had to go pick Erik up at preschool at 2:30 and the clock was ticking.

I guess I should just be grateful we discovered the problem today instead of tomorrow. I’m already thinking I’m going to be grouchy hungry by the time I have my c-section at 11:30 am. Can you imagine if I had to wait a few more hours while they registered me?

Eventually I saw a lab tech for all of thirty seconds. Or maybe a minute if I am being generous. All that waiting and for what? Two vials of blood. I hope they were precious.

When I got home I discovered that my laptop wasn’t charged up. I started messing with the plug and noticed the power adapter wasn’t lighting up. No matter where I plugged it in, there was no light. My laptop has no power. I won’t have a laptop to take to the hospital. That means no pictures for you, no entries for me, no entertainment for me. I am going to be bored out of my flippin’ mind. I’m taking a couple of books, but I am such an internet junkie that I feel like I’m going to cry.

Dell is sending me a new AC adapter and a box to send my laptop to them if that doesn’t fix my problem. They should arrive in three days. Bah! What about overnight shipping? Apparently me being bored at the hospital doesn’t constitute an emergency.

Despite these last minute frustrations, there were three very good things about the day.

Three packages on my porch!

I was planning on posting pictures, but my laptop is dead so I don’t have a card reader. Boo! You’ll just have to be patient I suppose.

Kisha sent Elsa a cute little diaper that she made herself and some cloth wipes. Real cloth wipes! She even had them folded in such a way that they were pop-ups! They beat the heck out of my pinking sheared, chopped up baby onsie wipes.

Grain_Damaged sent Elsa a beautiful little hat and matching leg warmers. I love the color! My very favorite greeny-blue. She also sent Erik a scarf*. Did I ever tell you that Erik’s a scarf man? Even though it was 70 degrees out, he wrapped the scarf around his neck and went scootering with his scarf and shorts. Silly goose. She also sent some cute little onsies and other baby items. Sophie, her four year old daughter, sent a very sweet little beaded “quilt.” Erik was very impressed and wants to make one himself. Oh, he also informed me that his scarf was not knit, it was quilted. He’s big on quilts. I wonder where he picked that up from?

Margie sent Elsa a beautiful handmade blanket and matching “turnip” hat. She is going to look adorable in it! She also sent some snuggly jammies!

Thank you ladies! You know how much I love handmade gifts. I get a tear in my eye just thinking of the care and love you put into a project for my little girl. I can’t wait to show her off in all her beautiful duds.

Ohhhh! More good news! Mike just came down and reported that he had a charger in his bag that was compatible with my computer. My computer is charging! Being married to a geek pays off!

Dang! He has no spell check on his browser. You’re just going to have to suffer lousy spelling. Maybe you will hear more from me tomorrow. I hope!

*I believe it is a Hufflepuff scarf because it’s black and gold, but maybe I’m just too into Harry Potter and that was not the intent.

I think I’m down to counting hours instead of days. Or I would be if that didn’t involve math. Something like 36 hours before D-Day? Whoo-hoo! I can’t wait to have her out, even if I am going to be exhausted. At least it will be different.

My neighbor was due April 16, but had her baby on Thursday. Her daughter is in total love with Erik, so as soon as they saw us outside she dashed across the street to play with him.

I thought I saw her husband in the doorway holding something baby blue, like a baby, but when they got over here to play the mom didn’t say a word. I kept looking at her, thinking she looked a lot smaller, but she had a really baggy hoodie on so I couldn’t tell.

Finally my mom, the picture of tact, straight out asked her if she’d had her baby yet. I didn’t want to ask because I know how annoying the “haven’t you had that baby yet!” exclamations can get.

I don’t know. Would you just stand there and chat and wait for someone to notice or would you say “Hey! I had my baby!”

She never elaborated, but my mom is a good one for questions so finally discovered the baby’s name and other stats. I think the lady is just shy, but it is definitely strange not to want to talk about the birth of your baby that happened four days ago! I would have liked to see him, but they didn’t ever bring him outside.

I told Mike that he has to go to the party store and get a big “It’s a Girl!” sign for the yard. He thinks I’m joking. Don’t you think the neighbors will be curious, though? I know I’m always curious. It’s an easy way to answer everyone’s questions without actually talking to a bunch of strangers. Maybe I’m the weird one and like to over share.

You never would have guessed that from a veteran blogger, eh?

Now my mom is pouting that the other lady got to have her baby first. I love having mom here, but she can certainly annoy me sometimes. She keeps suggesting things to put me into labor and it is just about on my last nerve. As tired as I am of being pregnant, I don’t want to go into labor. I can wait for the c-section.

My neighbor that I never talk to also annoyed the crud out of me today. My mom is all about gardening, so she did a bunch of yard work today and things are looking really nice. She was out planting petunias around our little tree (I should take a picture and see if anyone can identify it. It has big, pink flowers on it) and I was sitting in a lawn chair putting together the stroller (I am so, so happy I bought the Snap-and-Go!). The neighbor was out mowing his lawn and made a comment to Mike that women these days thought they could do anything. What the bleepity-bleep???? He’s not even an old man! He was probably around 20, if that old. He’s lucky I didn’t waddle over there, tear the lawnmower out of his hands and run his foot over. That would have taken way too much energy. He gets to live another day.

Just for your information, I will probably be posting about the birth on Tuesday night! I’ll have free wifi in my room, so I’m taking my laptop. I don’t know if I will have time to mess with pictures and all that, but you know I’ll have my laptop fired up if I’m not totally exhausted. Babies just sleep all the time, so I know I’ll get pretty bored after 3 or 4 days at the hospital. I guess we’ll see how the reality turns out, but I know I was getting pretty danged restless when I had Erik.

I feel like I’m only posting to report I’m not in labor. I don’t have anything to say, but since I’m normally a daily blogger I know some people might get excited if I didn’t post anything. Besides, if your friends page/feed reader is anything like mine, it is pretty sparse these days. Facebook and Twitter killed the blog star.

I think Erik’s Wednesday problem all boiled down to a lack of food. He was really cranky today after school so I kept feeding him and feeding him and feeding him. I kept expecting him to turn his nose up at the food, but he ate a whole grilled cheese sandwich, a pot of mac and cheese, three cheese sticks, yogurt and a full dinner in a three hour span. Maybe he’ll grow into his size 5 clothes quickly and quite looking like a hobo. There’s quite a jump in sizes between 4T and 5 boys. And you know how I hate sloppy looking clothes on my dear boy.

My clothes are getting pretty ridiculous as well. Even the shirts that were fine last week are way too tight this week. I know it will take awhile to lose the weight after the baby and that the belly doesn’t go away instantly, but hopefully things will be a little looser next week.

Ohhhh! Story! My mom just reminded me that we went to the Amish Market today.

I got quite the little thrill from a teenage Amish boy, obviously on his rumspringa. He was wearing the traditional Amish clothing, but his shirt was untucked and unbuttoned halfway down his chest. His hair was all spiked up and dotted with a really bad highlighting job. And he was waggling his eyebrows at me!

I was leaning up against the candy counter, just waiting my turn to order potato salad, barely able to breathe thanks to a baby in my lungs. I was looking around, huffing and puffing, and noticed this kid. It took me a minute, but I suddenly realized he was making eyes at someone. I looked around to see who had caught the eye of a wild Amish boy, but I was the only person around. He even waved when he saw me looking. I’m sure a teen girl would have been thrilled by his attention, but he was no Harrison Ford in Witness.

My theory? Since I am obviously pregnant he knows I know how to have sex. He’s on his rumspringa. He’s probably thinking about sex a lot. I’m sure he didn’t want to have sex with me *shudder*, but it was kind of hard to miss the fact that I’ve had sex at some point in the past 10 months.

Or maybe he has a pregnancy fetish.

Who knows. It was pretty strange.

Speaking of Amish stuff, has anyone heard of something called apple gel? One of my mom’s clients wanted her to bring back something called apple gel from the Amish market, but no one knew what we were talking about. Apparently it is a powder similar to corn meal for use in cooking. I have googled it, but my google kung fu failed me. What is it? What is this lady going to cook with it? Or not, since apparently you can’t buy it at the Amish market or the internet. If you exhaust those two sources, what do you have left?