DragonBlog

The Weekly Post?

Seems that Brian is posting more often than I am lately. Between the busy schedule and the overall tiredness that seems to be coming over me lately, I still just haven't had the time. When I am at my computer, I'm checking e-mail or working on a web project for a client. So I might just be posting weekly for now, possibly until the baby is born. Then I might have a bit of a dry spell before I come back full force, depending on if the new little one decides to sleep through the nights and what-not.

Meanwhile, my doctor appointments seem to have increased again. At the last appointment, my doctor needed to suddenly go deliver a baby and wasn't available to take regular appointments. This, at least, I can totally understand. I would hope that when *I* go into labor she'll blow off her appointments to take care of me too! The trouble was that the midwives that usually take over when she's not available weren't in yet and they needed to reschedule the appointments altogether. Since I've also been having an NST (a fetal monitoring test that checks how often the baby moves and stuff) each time, they sent me to have the test at a different area, within the hospital, instead of there in the adjacent office building I was at for the appointment. No big deal, I was more concerned at the time about some tests that the ultrasound guy wants me to do and the fact that my lunch glucose numbers are still a little high no matter how little I eat for lunch. Turns out I'll deal with that stuff next week at my normal Tuesday appointment.

Mainly, the problem is that while I was up in the labor & delivery ward, having my NST done, the midwife that did come in to take care of things in the doctor's absence, decided that I should have all my NSTs done in labor & delivery now, despite the fact that they have the machine there in their office too. Labor & delivery requires I make an appointment for it. They also can't guarantee how long it will take - anywhere from a half an hour to an hour each time, depending on if the baby moves around enough or not.

Now, I have to take Jareth with for all this crap to begin with. I try not to drag him out for "mommy's appointments" any more often than I have to. With my class on Mondays and Wednesdays and Jareth's class Tuesday mornings, adding an extra doctor's appointment is getting tricky. I've also got to go register every single time I go for the NST now, meaning I need to allow an extra 15 minutes for THAT too! Basically, I've scheduled them an hour before my doctor's appointment since they are in buildings that are attached to each other and I don't want to have to drive out twice. It means that Tuesdays are not SHOT. I will get nothing done except Jareth's class, lunch, and my doctor's appointments. I will also have to check my lunch glucose levels while I'm doing the NST, unless I can time it just right.

I'm getting frustrated. It seems that every time I start to settle into a little bit of a routine and figure out when my supposed "free time" actually IS, I end up with something else I need to compensate for. I'm stressed out FAR more than I'm generally willing to admit to. They should be testing ME for stress, not the baby! Of course the baby is stressed out some - her MOMMY is stressing to the MAX nowadays. I hope I'm not already giving her neurosis from the womb! Sheesh!

It seems like they only change something, or otherwise make my life more stressful, when I go to the doctor without another grown-up in tow for moral support (and to help me keep Jareth preoccupied for a couple of boring hours from a two-year-old standpoint). Thus, RainMoon is going to try and come to all the rest of my appointments with me. Hopefully they won't throw any more hoops for me to jump through if I've got someone there on MY side. Seems that anytime it's just Jareth and I they say something that leaves me in tears. Which, I suppose, doesn't say a LOT since I end up in tears pretty easily lately - damned hormones! I'm a freaking wreck!

And you wonder why I'm not blogging much? I don't want this to be "RaynDragon's Doom & Gloom Page." I expect things will pick up again around here once my newest little one has popped out and lit my life back up again with coos and smiles. I SO can't wait to have this baby...

G'night!

Current Mood: stressed

Too Damned Busy...

Now that classes have begun - both my Jewelry 2 class and the ones Jareth takes at the park district - once you toss in the weekly doctor's appointment, usual grocery trip(s), other assorted errands, and a web site I'm working on...

I haven't got time to breathe lately!

While I'm going to bed at a more normal hour these days, instead of staying up till all hours (yay me!), I'm still having trouble getting out of bed in the mornings. I think, to be perfectly honest, it's the sheer amount of stuff I have to do that is weighing me down. Ironically enough, another web project that has been waiting in the wings has suddenly popped up, ready to be done now. While it won't be hugely difficult to put together, since it's blog-related, I've still had to postpone it a couple of weeks so that I can get closer to finished with the web project I'm already working on. While one project is a barter deal and the other is for money, I'm still taking them in the order they came in.

Looks like the baby won't have a room to sleep in at this rate. *sigh* I gotta do the web stuff first, since we really need the money, and my jewlery class has a priority status too, since it's working towards a whole career move. Then, of course, there's the usual play and snuggle time that must happen with my #1 priority - Jareth. I must say, however, he was super understanding the other day and played quietly by himself for several hours while I worked on the current web project, getting me much closer to where I need to be with it at least.

Then there's the other little stuff that seems to come up lately. Like the level 2 ultrasound I went for today. While I was excited to "see" my unborn baby again, it was still another chunk of time that I had to schedule in. Not only that, but they want to do one more of them next month, along with another visit where they'll check to make sure the baby's heart is okay. It's not that they found anything wrong today - in fact the baby is no longer facing the wrong direction to be born and finally admitted to having FEMALE genitalia! - but because of the diabetes being bad enough to require insulin, they are doing all sorts of extra stuff. At least they told me the baby seems to be the right size and everything too. Part of the concern with gestational diabetes is that the baby can get too big. It sounded like everything looked good though.

I have no new pictures to share though, as she spent the whole time facing my spine and hiding from the ultrasound. The woman that took most of the pictures for the doctor tried super hard to find the gender and couldn't, as the baby had one of her legs tucked up to hide that area. By the time the doctor came in and did some more looking of his own with the scanner, she'd moved her foot and he was able to to show us "girl parts". Looks like Jareth will have a little sister to look after. *grin*

Anyway, I've had plenty of stuff to blog lately - little snippets here and there and the like, but I've just been so busy that I haven't had time to really pop in here and post. While I am able to steal time in the morning to do Quick Shtick Writing nearly every day (today we didn't, as Brian had to dig us out from under a foot and a half of snow), it can be hard to find time to do this one as well.

Anyway, I just wanted to check in briefly and post something, especially since we got a positive ID on the baby's gender today! I just can't wait to meet this little one!

G'night!

Current Mood: busy

Teeny, Tiny Hiccups...

I'd totally forgotten about it. Something that had amazed me the last time I was pregnant, when the nurse explained during one of my visits in those last few months of pregnancy...

"Sometimes the baby kicks in a really regular rhythm," I told her. "Is that because it can hear my heartbeat or something?"

"No, actually," she said with a smile. "Those are hiccups."

Hiccups. Hiccups! I'm feeling the hiccups all over again.

When Jareth was born, I bet he missed having that nice fluid sack around him, absorbing some of the momentum caused by the hiccups. Because as an infant, hiccups seemed to shake his whole body like mini volcanic eruptions from within his little chest!

I think it's so cute that my unborn child is having hiccups!

Except for the part where they most often occur when I'm trying to fall asleep.

Yeah. *sigh* Such is my lot in life when relating to this pregnancy. At least they are another little reminder that the baby's okay and still moving in there. I'd rather have to wait out the hiccups before I can sleep than have no indications at all.

My next ultrasound is on the 21st. Despite the circumstances that are requiring me to have another ultrasound in the first place, I still can't wait. Maybe will get some positive confirmation on the baby's gender. We still don't have a name picked out if it's a boy.

I keep feeling like I'm running out of time. Fast.

G'night!

Current Mood: anxious

Figuring In The Family Unit...

This post of Logtar's is going to save me from talking about the real reason I'm not blogging much right now. Because, to be perfectly honest, I'm depressed. There's tons and tons of factors bringing me down right now and I don't generally like this blog to be quite as dark and dreary as I predict it would be if I blogged about it. So, instead, I've been waiting on stuff to talk about otherwise. Logtar's comment on my last post led me over to peek in on his blog, where I found his post on family.

He mentions visiting with family on Sundays. Ironically enough, something Brian's family does, although recently we've had to cut it down to one Sunday per month because of schedules, house projects, and other conflicts. We chat over appetizers (usually something simple - chips, salsa, cheese, and crackers), and then chat more while dinner is eaten, and then finish our catching up over coffee and dessert. Frequently we stay longer than we initially intended, as it's always hard to pack it in and head home from that warm cocoon of family time. I sometimes say that I married Brian for his family, and I'm not altogether joking when I say that. My own family could barely stand to be in the room with each other for more than an hour without someone getting upset over something, so Brian's family has always been a sign to me that it can work. Marriage CAN work. Family CAN get along. These are the things I have grabbed hold of and am incorporating into raising my own little family.

I agree with Logtar, however, that it is NOT a commonly seen thing here in America. While we eat dinner at our house very late every evening so that we can still sit down at the table together despite Brian's work schedule, most families barely seem to do that anymore, if at all. Most of the stay-at-home moms I know complain frequently about the long hours their husbands have to work. Partly, the husbands have to work harder in order to maintain an economic balance that lately seems to need two people working just to happen. Anything more than a teeny little apartment and ramen noodle lunches seems to require that second income to exist first. Being a "mommy" is probably the hardest job ever - it certainly has the most pressure! I work practically 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and am paid in hugs, kisses, and "I wuv you mommy" phrases. Not exactly something I can take to the grocery store and buy food on, but still rewarding, nonetheless. As for the pressure - I'm responsible for molding this little human being into a healthy, happy, individual somehow. I have to provide a good environment, education, encouragement, discipline, and lots of love both on command and spontaneously. Try doing that at your office job sometime. Egads!

Also, I have to say that it should really be both parents raising the child. While I can see the benefit to the mother being the primary caregiver in the early years - while the child is still developing and a lot of what they do is being derived from their raw emotions, it seems right to have the more empathic individual in charge of the upbringing. Part of the empathic link between a mother and child begins while that child is still inside the womb. The baby inside me right now can tell when I'm upset, and moves about anxiously (which means a LOT lately). I find myself purposely trying to calm myself down and rubbing circles on my stomach, trying to soothe the unborn infant, sometimes talking and sometimes just trying to generate waves of good feelings to send in there. After Jareth was born I found myself all but snatching him out of other people's arms if he so much as cried a little bit. My instincts kicked in to protect my little one from anything and everything that might upset him. I've needed to hold him if he's been hurt - my own heart pounding right along with his as I held him in my arms and crooned to him that it would be alright. There is definitely a bond there.

But I also see the bond between my son and Brian growing stronger all the time. Not just because they are both male either. Jareth needs his daddy just as much as he needs me. The father is, inherently, the protector of the family. I've noticed that now, when Brian's home, Jareth will still want my love and snuggles if he gets hurt, but he's not fully satisfied until his father has also hugged him and assured him that all is well again. I find, lately, that my own time with my husband has dropped down to next to nothing as we both try to take advantage of what little time Brian has at home - allowing that bond between him and Jareth to flourish. It is clear to me that Jareth requires both his parents to be a part of his life. Each of us are equally important to his development.

But, in modern America, no one is paying us to do the most important job of all - raise our children. And "money" is required for us to DO that job. We have to have money just to provide some of the most basic needs - food, shelter, clothing, to say the least.

Sadly, I have no solutions to offer up to the problem. We're struggling along on one income in order to allow me to be home, and yet I'm still taking classes with the intent to one day work at home so that our finances will maybe get better. It seems like the best we can do. The most we can hope for. In reality, there should be some way that both Brian and I could work part-time and share both responsibilities. But part-time doesn't usually come with insurance, or decent enough pay to make it honestly work if we ever wanted to be more than "lower class" citizens. While I don't need a monster house or gourmet meals every night, I do need to know that our kids can go to college one day or that we can take them to the doctor when they are sick without running the risk of bankruptcy.

In the end, it's just not fair. But then, nobody EVER tried to tell me life was FAIR. That's for damned sure. I'd just hoped for it.

But it IS still worth it. My little growing family. It may seem really hard, but it is definitely worth it.

G'night!

Current Mood: thoughtful

Busy, but Eating Like Kings...

I know, I know... It's been nearly a week since my last post! After two full years of blogging nearly every day I seem like I've suddenly gotten lax. Not so much, it's just that I usually do my personal blog at night, after everyone else has gone to bed. This last week I've been going to bed at a more reasonable hour, with everyone else. Until now. All of a sudden my "restless legs" thing has kicked back in and it's keeping me awake again. Which sucks, actually, because I was getting some good nights of sleep in for a while there. Let's hope it's just a temporary thing, and not something that will plague me for the remainder of the pregnancy. I should say not something else that will plague me, actually. It seems like this pregnancy has been pretty full of little foibles messing with my general feeling of well-being.

On that note, the diabetes thing has both pros and cons to be sure. For one - at dinnertime we're eating like kings! Not big, fat, kings with a penchance for sweet things, mind you, but more like kings with a flair for the gourmet. I've been cooking primarily from the diabetes cookbook that Brian got me for Solstice. Which means that a) I'm the one doing the cooking (something I'm sure Brian is cheering over) and b) we're eating things with words and ingredients that I've never even heard of, much less used before.

Capers, for example, are not small fish, as everyone I've mentioned the word to immediately assumed. I had to ask at the grocery store to find out that capers are little green pod-like things that come in jars in the condiment aisle. Oh. I see. Now there's a partially-used jar of capers in my fridge. I have no clue what else I'll use them for other than the recipe I bought them for. Fortunately, that was one of the recipes that went over pretty well...

It's been interesting trying out the recipes, but pricey overall. We had been carefully budgeting the food prior to this, mixing nicer chicken dinners in between the spaghetti, mac & cheese, and inexpensive frozen casserole-like things, to keep the overall grocery bill down. Now, I spend more time in the meat and produce section and the bill is sometimes as much as double what it used to be. While the meals are much healthier, they also require a LOT more preparation to make. Just because I'm capable of cooking nice stuff doesn't mean I want to do it EVERY DAMNED NIGHT! *sigh* But my glucose numbers have been coming out very nicely between the cooking and the insulin shots. So I keep plugging away at it. There's just something about the old cliche of being "barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen"... *grumble, mumble, grumble*

We do seem to have evicted the fleas at least. I haven't noticed any new bites since we bombed the house with the anti-flea stuff. Ironically enough I, with my diminished sense of smell, could smell the icky bug stuff all over the house something fierce afterwards. Enough to give me a nasty headache. The next day I picked up six of those twist-open air fresheners and they seem to have fixed the problem. While I can't tell it smells like "vanilla" in my house, I CAN tell that it DOESN'T smell like bug stuff. Which is good.

Over the weekend we took care of the veritable mountain of laundry, but otherwise ended up blowing off a whole lot of other stuff to spend some family time relaxing together. Brian's work schedule is still frustrating me something fierce, and I feel like we never get to see him for more than an hour at a time anymore. It's really tough for me to take what little time we have together and insist that we work on the various projects that need doing right now. Unfortunately, that means we're running fast out of time to get the baby's room ready before the baby gets born. We still haven't even gotten the clutter out of there that has been building up for the last couple of years! *sigh* I keep getting overwhelmed by it all, especially when a simple hour-long trip to the grocery store can easily screw up my legs/hips so that I'm on crutches for the evening afterwards.

Anyway, that's all of the update for now. Something in my computer is whining in this high-pitched little noise and it's starting to annoy me. I also need to try and go back to bed, assuming my legs settle down and actually let me sleep. Let's hope the noise is just a fluke or the fan, and not something important like my hard drive. I haven't backed up in a while. Maybe I should run one while I'm out most of the day tomorrow. Assuming I have time in the morning to start it up. I'd hate to have my computer clunk out on me just as I'm starting work on a web design I'm doing for someone in a barter trade for their services. That would suck. And I don't really have time in my schedule to pop open the computer box and look inside until maybe Thursday. The day I was specifically hoping to spend on the aforementioned web design work. Sheesh. I'm too busy for my own good.

G'night!

Current Mood: busy

And So It Goes...

Tomorrow, we bug-bomb the house, thus murdering the little flea bastards and their devil offspring. At least, that's the plan. The original plan was to do this on Saturday, having thought there was a need for a serious cleaning to be done afterwards to remove the chemicals from the house (and dead flea corpses in their tiny body bags). Some research, however, told us that the chemicals we'll be using aren't actually quite as toxic as we had feared and will put me and the unborn little one at no risk assuming we heed the few cautions they've outlined on the label. Since we didn't need to wait until people were available to help with the deep clean of the house (since I was afraid of the potential chemical risk and didn't want to leave Brian stuck doing it all alone, I had recruited family and friends to help out - everyone jumped in and said a hearty "yes" too - leaving me with this wonderful overwhelming sense of love and gratitude, as I'm generally one who doesn't like to trouble other people with situations like this), we could afford to bump up the date on when we did it. After I broke down this morning and couldn't climb back into bed while I still had time left before Jareth woke up, I knew I couldn't wait for the weekend anymore. I am itching and swatting at phantom fleas at this point, and I KNOW I felt them biting me in the bed - I found indications of it right afterwards. I'm out of patience, it has to happen NOW. (meanwhile the sheets have been changed AGAIN so that I can hopefully get a decent enough night's sleep tonight before we do this tomorrow)

Brian managed to get tomorrow off of work and borrow a small cargo trailer to put our pets into while we're smoking the place up with the bug bombs. We'll set the pets up with a space heater to keep them warm in there (they'll be in carriers and the like so they can't mess with it) and then we'll head out, run a couple errands, and grab lunch while the bombing dust settles. Afterwards, we'll do the cleaning that needs to happen - mostly kitchen stuff and laundry, and hopefully be done with it all.

Keep your fingers crossed that it works. I'm tired of itching... *shudder*

On a totally unrelated note, I wanted to link to this post of RainMoon's, which talks about New Year's eve and where some of the tradition stuff comes from. I found it a really interesting read.

G'night!

Current Mood: tired

Happy 2006!

Happy New Year's everyone! This is one night a year I can get Brian to stay up late with me, although he's upstairs popping into bed right now. I don't expect I'm actually too far behind him, as I've been hitting the sheets earlier these days myself. We spent the evening as we usually do - with pen & paper roleplaying games entertaining us and then briefly clicking on the television in the nick of time to see the countdown so we could do the appropriate smooching. The only real difference this year was the utter and total lack of anything sparkling to drink, since I can't even drink the non-alcoholic stuff as it all has tons and tons of sugar in it too. Nonetheless, we had a good time and didn't have to do any driving. As far as I'm concerned, New Year's Eve is the absolute scariest time to be on the road, especially after midnight.

No, I didn't end up coming up with a resolution after all. I've got plenty of things on my "to do list", but they are all just tasks to be done, not the right stuff to count as a resolution specifically. I'm just resolving to continue to do my best to see this baby born healthy, as I managed to do with Jareth, I guess. Right now, that's one of the most important things overall. I'm hoping 2006 will be a wonderful year. A year of change is expected, with the new baby arriving. A year of progress on many goals is wanted. I've several goals to pursue myself, and I know Brian has one or two as well.

Please don't drink and drive tonight. In fact, don't drive at all if you don't have to. If you're drunk - just pass out there and go home in the morning, or something like that. Better safe than sorry. It would suck to start a new year out by smashing your car up and possibly getting killed, eh? Yeah. So don't do that.

G'night!

Current Mood: optimistic