Trying To Relax

It’s no lie that I lead a high-stress life. At work I handle customer service with pet owners and multiple projects daily. At home I have my instant family. And now in life my body is 100% of the time working to create a baby and I have to make sure to eat the right things, get enough sleep and not over do it. Needless to say I am also a Type A personality. (I should probably add a + or 2 after that “A” there.)

So my mother comes over this weekend and she and FH get into how stress can reflect on the baby’s personality and temperament. Great! Let’s add some more things to stress me out. So I’ve been working on a few ways to not stress or to at least calm myself more. Which isn’t easy.

Luckily Jane has been on best behavior as of late. By that I mean she has actually kept her dinner dates with the boys the last month or so and is actually sticking to the holiday agreement that she gets the boys for the weekend this Easter. (I’m secretly hoping this means we can start sending them over there for the weekends again.)

However, Middle Boy and Younger Boy have not been on best behavior. In order to deal with this I’ve been trying to let FH go in there and lay down the law of the land. However, apparently I’m the big boss in the house so I only try to intervene when it gets crazy hair pulling out of control. (That’s a great blog I’ll save for later too.) But I’m hoping that they’ll start to show a bit more respect for FH when he’s being the authorative parent. Personally I think he just needs to just be more consistent in stepping in.

Back to me, I’ve found that the Winnie-The-Pooh movie, classical music, baby lullabies, ice cream and chocolate pudding cups are my best means of relaxing – And of course catching any moment of quiet that I can.

I’m curious to see what types of things you’ve found to help yourself relax from the crazy stepmomma or momma life. I know it’s only going to get more crazy once the baby is born but I figure now is a good time as any to start practicing ways to relax and recharge.

BTW – I’ll be 13 weeks on Wednesday. Yay for the recent decrease in morning sickness as the second trimester creeps into the picture!

Eleven Weeks

Eleven Weeks – that is how far along I am in my pregnancy.

I’m still trying to grasp it although seeing the ultrasound made it more real for me. I’m a mix of emotions. I’m excited, and terrified, and flat out amazed. I’m also hating on the first trimester. Morning sickness blows, and if I don’t eat something small every 30-40 minutes I feel nauseous.

I’m also exhausted. As excited as I am, I really was looking forward to some downtime between the wedding and getting to be a wife. It still seems weird calling FH my husband in casual conversation. It sounds almost unbelievable telling everyone that I’m pregnant. It was quite a surprise that not even a week after the wedding I’m peeing on a stick that is telling me I’m pregnant. Not just pregnant, but six or so weeks pregnant.

But that is life, and we’re going to open our next chapter with open arms.

If anything the boys are very, very excited. I’m not sure how involved they got to be in Jane’s last pregnancy. But we’ve been having them take part in helping me out now. I’m glad that they’re as excited as they are. It’s helping me adjust to it all much easier.

Older Boy has taken on the duty of litter box patrol. It’s been great because he hasn’t complained about it and he does it every night as if he’s been doing it for years.

Younger Boy and Middle Boy actually got to be there for the first ultra sound. We made sure there was a heart beat before we brought them and FH in, but they were really excited and fascinated by the experience. We’re hoping that Older Boy will be able to accompany us one of these times once summer comes.

So here he or she is!

It Rhymes!

Younger Boy has really been excelling in the spelling words area. He has learned about compound words; although I can’t say that he understand the exact word “Compound Word.” But he’s learned that he can put little words together to make bigger words. He’s mastered such words as “cupcake,” “subway,” and “cat food.”

In addition to these bigger words he has also been learning about words that rhyme. Many times throughout the day I hear excitement in:

“Crys! Bed, Shed! They rhyme!”

“Mouse, House! They rhyme!”

And various other rhyming word combinations. He’s also starting to learn new words from rhyming words. For example we were in the car one day trying to think of all the different words that rhyme with bug. He started switching the “b” out with other letters.

From switching out single letters, he started switching in letter combinations like “ch,” sh,” “st,” etc. He learned that chug rhymes with bug, but that stug isn’t really a word –

Even though it rhymed. Which brings us to tonight’s experience.

There we were. In the middle of a restaurant. He was happily eating his ice cream. He had spelled the word “hat” for us multiple times. Hat by the way is his most favorite word ever. When out of no where he announces out loud:

“I can spell shat! S-H-A-T!”

FH and I looked at each other.

“He didn’t learn that from me.” I mumbled as my face dove into my hands to try and contain the laughter that wanted to bust out. FH just shook his head as he mumbled “We’ll, it is past tense.” Can I just say that we were both dying from holding in the laughter.

I think I shall wait to see if he spells it again in which I’ll let him know that “shat” isn’t really a word. And instead we should try the word “shut” or even better we can stray away from substituting that vowel and make the word “shout.”

You have to love the things that come out of those little, rapidly growing brains.