A very long and rambling post of my thoughts.

This Friday marks 29 weeks for me. That means I am into the 3rd trimester now. For me, this time around, it also means lots and lots of acid reflux, growing out of all my current maternity clothes, daily hip joint, pelvic & back pain, being really tired all the time, and a belly that is measuring 3 centimeters bigger than normal. I really think I am farther along than my LMP due date indicates, just because I started feeling all my symptoms so much earlier this time around. Like, at 3.5 weeks into the pregnancy when I started feeling nausea before I even knew I was pregnant. Oh, and the fact that I am measuring so big now and that the baby is measuring big too. I had my glucose test this week, and it came back negative for gestational diabetes (I really was starting to wonder if that was the reason for the large-ness). And, according to my last 2 ultrasounds, I am not having twins. So, maybe this baby will come at the end of June instead of in July? I don't want to get my head set on that, and then go over my due date... that would definitely be a cruel form of self-inflicted torture. On a good note, the baby moves a lot and is very reactive to me changing positions, to music, and to voices. It just may be that I have a 10-pounder in there.

This week is the Quilting In The Aspens retreat here at Aspen Grove. There are 25 ladies here with their sewing machines and various projects. Today was Day 2 of the retreat. After taking the girls to their busses in the mornings, I have been driving back up here to Aspen Grove to go sew with the gals. I've brought Tysen with me both days from about 10 until 3pm, and I have to say, he has been a perfect little angel for me. I never would have guessed that a 3.5 year old little boy could entertain himself so well for 4-5 hours. He is so content to just sit on the couches in the room or on a chair next to me and my sewing machine, playing with his cars or with the games on Daddy's tablet. When he starts to get bored, he just takes one or two of his cars, and finds someone next to me who has a long quilting ruler, sets up the ruler to make a "Race Car Ramp" and races his cars down it. He hasn't caused any problems for any of the ladies (they are actually quite charmed with him and love to stop and play cars with him for a moment) and I have actually gotten a lot of work done on a scrap quilt I have been working on- which is ending up as two twin bed quilts instead of the one large quilt it started out as. What a happy, sweet little boy I have. I'm so glad he still loves to cuddle with me and sit on my lap, and he always asks me to "Take care of him" at night when it is time to tuck him into bed. In some ways it is sad to see his Baby of the Family days coming to an end, but I'm so excited that he is getting a little brother to play with! Maybe it will steer him away from the Princess dress-ups he loves to do with Aspen. In so many ways he is all-boy, but when it comes to playing with his siblings, having another little boy around to play cars with him will be so much fun!

Madi is doing well at her new school, although we haven't seen a lot of progress with her yet. I think having her in school for the full day instead of just half day is really good for her. She doesn't go into what we call "Rampage Mode" as often once she gets home. That's what she does when she gets bored... she goes from one place in the house to the next, pulling everything off the table, the computer desk, the bookshelves... whatever she can get her hands on to make messes with. She has been taking naps on the bus on the way home, which is great- it's usually only about a 20 minute nap, and then she sleeps better at night. Huge blessing! We are still hoping to see some form of communication emerge with her (other than just whimpering or whining when she wants something and making us try to guess). In some ways, she is my child who requires the most work, but she is also the one who requires less work in other ways. She also is still very cuddly, especially when she is tired. She is starting to interact with Tysen and Aspen more, too. She likes to follow Tysen from one room to the next, almost like she is playing Tag with him, or Hide and Seek. He loves running from one place to the next, making her chase him. Aspen loves to wrestle with Madi, letting Madi tackle her. It's quite funny to watch, because Madi absolutely loves it.

Aspen is becoming a very good helper around the house for me. Some days I come home from picking the girls up from school (usually around 5pm) and I have nothing planned or prepared for dinner, the house is a mess, kids are hungry, and all I can do is collapse on the couch and not move until the soreness subsides in my lower body. So I've been having Aspen help make dinner, as I direct her from the couch. She enjoys learning to cook and being able to say she did it all by herself. Her specialty right now is Macaroni and Cheese. She is also really good to fetch me things that I need, like the phone when it is ringing, without complaining. She is still quite the little book worm and is a very good student. She did not make it into the Advanced Learning Program that she tested for, and was very dissappointed about that- but I am ok with it. The teachers at her school are very willing to challenge each student at the level they are at, and I know she is not bored in the classroom so I think she is right where she should be.

Jim is taking his Anatomy Final next week. This has been a really tough class for him, but stimulating and interesting as well. I know he has enjoyed learning the material, it's just tough that the class has had to move through it so fast and make him cram it in. It would have been so much more enjoyable if it wouldn't have been so intense, but I am so proud of how he has handled the pressure of school, work, and family all at the same time. It has been good for him to have this class during Winter semester, when things are typically slower for him at work and it is easier for him to take some time off to do the class. Now that we are in mid-April, things are starting to pick up at work for him and will stay busy until towards the end of June, when the new summer staff are all trained and the summer season is running like a well-oiled machine. I'm hoping he gets a really good, dependable staff this summer, since he is probably going to have to help me out at home more this summer, before AND after the baby comes. The fact that I am getting to the point already where it is hard for me to walk very far without feeling lots of pain, tells me that I am going to have a hard time getting the kids to & from Age Groups, and the Dining Hall for meals, come June. I sometimes stop and think about the fact that I will have 4 children to manage soon, and it can feel very overwhelming if I let it. But I do feel like I've been blessed with some really great kids, who definitely make my job fun and very rewarding. With this baby, I'm going to try to avoid being induced if at all possible. I was induced a week over my due date with Aspen. I tried to hold off on the epidural as long as possible, which proved to be a mistake, once they started me on Pitocin and then broke my water. My body was thrown into hard labor all of a sudden, and the person doing the epidurals was off helping out with a C-section so I had to wait it out for over an hour, and I was really unprepared for that. Once the epidural was in and working, most of the labor was done. I think it helped more with the after-labor, but hers was a tough one, even though the whole process was less than 4 hours. Next was Madi. Completely different story here... I started having labor pain at 1:30am, 5 weeks before my due date. Way too soon, right? That's what I thought, too. So I just paced the floor for a while, trying to relax. Then I had Jim give me a blessing, I took a hot shower, then went to bed and slept for about 4 hours. And slept really well, by  the way- labor pain went away until 7:20am, when it hit IN EARNEST. I was immediately in hard labor, with painful contractions coming every 3 minutes or so. Jim took the fastest shower of his life (I still can't believe I let him take a shower before getting me to the hospital) then we got to the hospital just before 8:30am. Madi was out less than a minute after I got onto the hospital bed. There were no Doctors there yet- the on-duty nurse caught her as she came out, born in her bag of water because my water hadn't even broke yet. Next was Tysen. I was still fearful of another experience like that with Madi- so my Doctor readily agreed to inducing me early with T, to make sure we were at the hospital and prepared. It was a textbook delivery. I had the epidural, they induced me with Pitocin, and T was born 2.5 hours later, healthy as can be. My after-labor was more difficult, though. I remember the whole time I was in the hospital after T was born, having painful after-birth contractions. Which I attribute to having to be induced. Oh- and with Baby James, I went into labor around 7am but didn't know it was labor yet, because it was just really painful in my back, until we got to the hospital at 8:30am, and the hard contractions started. Got the epidural in, had my water broke, baby J was born 6 hours later. Pretty fast for a first one, so I have been told. SO- this time around, I want to try to have this baby without being induced. I will opt for a different form of pain medication for sure, but don't want to be completely numbed if I can help it. I know it is going to be hard, and that it will be painful. But I am hoping that due to past experience, my labor will not last that long and being less medicated from not having an epidural will help me recover sooner. Of course, every birth situation and every baby is different, so we will see what happens!

Here are some pictures for your viewing enjoyment:

 Easter Morning! Happy kids!

Madi- well, she liked her new socks, at least! She could care less about the eggs :) 

Daddy scored all 3 kids a red Life Flight beanie hat. They all loved them- even Madi wore hers a lot this winter! I guess she decided it was pretty nice to have a warm head :)