Pre-baby to do list

Honestly, I can't even think of that much to do. With pregnancy number 1, the to-do's seemed overwhelming, but this time we already have a shitton of baby gear. We have childcare lined up. We have loads of baby crap. We have loads of feeding, nursing, etc crap. Wow, preparing for baby number 2 is a lot less time consuming than getting ready for the first one. Of course, I have about 115% less free time to prepare for this one than I did for Caroline, so I guess it all evens out.

1.  Switch my stepson  to the current nursery and turn it into a tween boy room and switch current teen boy room to nursery suitable for a toddler and an infant, possibly of different genders.

Not my actual baby room. I wish

Actually, this one makes my head hurt with the enormity of it. But it has to be done. Our house has four bedrooms but one is 2 floors below the others in the basement. Obviously, we can't put either of the little kids there and stepson isn't quite ready to be that separated from the rest of the family at night. Plus, I'm not ready to give up having a guest room. So, Caroline and the new baby will share a room for about 2 years (unless we get a new house between now and then). The current nursery is tiny and there is no way to fit two kids in there. Stepson's room is much bigger and unfair or not, he is only here part time so the switch is non-negotiable. But there is so much to do. I can't really start until I know whether we are having a boy child or a girl child and I know what to do about paint and decor, so I can keep my head in the sand about it for a couple more weeks.

The hardest part of this task with be cattle prodding DH into action...during football season. 

2. Get new furniture and bedding for new baby.

Easy enough. Just need to know the sex of this thing.

3. Clean and sanitize entire house.

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. As much as I want this done, the only way it will happen is by hiring a team of industrial cleaners to come in and hose this place down. I just don't have the time or energy to tackle such a huge, futile task.

4. Buy new diapers.

My favorite task on the list. We cloth diaper and like many other cloth diaperers, I am addicted to buying fluff. I've been on the clean and sober, no fluff, wagon but now I am happily jumping off! I'm trying to be sensible though. Since I still have 5 months to go until the baby is born, I am only buying during sales or other incentive type events. I love DiaperShops.com because they always have a coupon for discounts or free diapers, but I'm trying to hold out for the really good deals. I'm also looking into renting newborn cloth diapers. If this baby is like Caroline, it won't fit into newborn size diapers past about 2 months and I'm certainly not investing in purchasing new ones, but I want my itty bitty in fluff, so rental looks like the best option. It would probably be cheaper to use disposables until it is big enough to fit in to one-size diapers, but we chose cloth diapering for reasons other than cost (though the cost savings are significant).

5. Stock freezer with meals. 

I didn't do this last time and regretted it. This time will be different. I'm hoarding recipes on Pinterest and plan to start prepping just as soon as the weather cools and it isn't a million degrees in my kitchen. Again, this all must be done with a toddler attached to my leg just to add a little extra challenge.

6. Buy boy clothes

 If it is a boy.

What else? I don't know. Spend time with Caroline? Always. Sleep? As if. Dates with husband? Whenever we get the chance. I know I must be missing a ton but for the life of me I can't figure out what it is.

One woman's joy is another woman's heartbreak.

About two years ago, when the hubs and I first started to try to conceive (TTC), I started frequenting the message boards. I stumbled onto a sub-group of 30-something women within a larger general TTC board. The nature of TTC boards is transient. Some come in, get pregnant right away and move on. Others take a little longer. Then there are the board veterans. These are the women who live with the heartbreak of infertility. They watch women month after month get knocked up and move on while they once again cry at the arrival of their period (I refuse to use the term Aunt Flo outside of the message boards. I really hate that term.). This group of "older" women had a mix of all the stages of TTC.

Over the course of the next year, the group remained and we all became great friends. True, we had never met in real life but we were definitely friends. We talked to each other about all aspects of our lives, including but not limited to, baby-making. During that time many of the women became pregnant, others did not, others suffered the disappointment of miscarriages. I was one of the lucky ones. Despite the different paths we were all going on, our friendship remained.We eventually took our friendship off the message boards and on to Facebook, so that there would no longer be an aspect of our lives left outside of The Book. While we talk mostly about the rest of our lives, we do still talk about TTC especially with those that are still trying. Because the women have become such good friends, my heart hurts with every failed IVF attempt and every IUI that one can't afford. I would give anything for them to have a child, I know how great it is. I hurt every time they discuss a sister of cousin who is pregnant or the pain of having to sit through a baby shower or any of the other ways that life slaps you around when you are infertile. I would do anything to prevent that pain for them

So how will I tell them that I'm pregnant again?

Punkin Pickin'

Borrowed from my other blog.

On Saturday we decided to brave the sweltering fall weather and head out for a day of pumpkin picking and other fun fall activities. First we got lost in the corn maze.

Caroline hung tough in the Ergo despite the fact that it was really hot.



Then the boys tried out the pumpkin cannon. Scott was a pretty good shot with that thing.



Caroline and I waited in the wings.



She was busy looking adorable.



I just couldn't resist giving her kisses. I can never resist giving her kisses!

Then it was off to the pumpkin patch to pick a pumpkin for our little pumpkin.



Big brother carried the pumpkin back to the truck.



We were all tired from all the fun and both kids crashed out as soon as we got in the car. Scott and I decided to use that time to go for a nice drive through some of the adorable small towns that populate Maryland. It was a great day!

One little brown spot and suddenly it's a Poison apple.

Recently I was watching Cinderella- the original cartoon version, not the whacktacular version with Brandie and Whitney Houston (speaking of cracktacular whacktacular). You know the one in which Whoopi Goldberg and Jennifer Garner's dad on Alias mate to produce a Filipino son.- anyway and as always happens I got angry that the stepmother is evil.

It's well known that the Grimm brothers didn't do much to advance respect and reverence for stepmothers. Those bastards will forever be on my shit list for coining the "wicked/evil stepmother" phrase. Where's the disdain for the fathers who left their children in the care of these women and who let themselves be controlled so easily? But I digress.

There are several theories as to why fairy tales are filled with evil stepmothers. One is that it is more believable that a stepmother would be trying to off the kids than a mother. Maybe, but most stepmothers I know are just as horrified at the thought of hurting a child as are mothers. I have my own theory as to how fairytale stepmoms got such a bad reputation. These stories are told from the child's side. Did anyone ask Snow White's stepmother for her version of the events? Everyone knows kids are prone to exaggeration (I never knew until just now how to spell exaggeration. Two Gs. Who knew?) and even outright lying. Here's my theory on the origins of some well-known "wicked" stepmothers.

Snow White- In Snow White's version, her stepmother gives her a poison apple to try to kill her. Now, I recall one time when my stepson accused me of trying to kill him because I suggested that he drink water from the tap since we don't keep bottled water around the house. We live in an well-populated suburb of a large America city, not in a third world country or even somewhere with well-water. So the idea that tap water would kill him is a bit of an exaggeration (Two Gs!) don't you think. Is it really a far stretch to believe that Snow White's stepmother told Snow White to go outside and take a break from Facebook and gave her an apple. In all her teenage brattiness, Snow White huffed out and examined the apple which just happened to have a tiny brown spot. Looking for any excuse that she could to hate her stepmother, Snow White declared her horror at the brown spot and that she had been given a POISON apple and chose to stay outside and sulk. The dwarves that took her in? They were actually the quiverful family down the street that simply didn't notice that she wasn't one of theirs.

Cinderella- Poor Cinderella forced by her stepmother to do all the chores around the house while her daughters did nothing. I know this one too. My stepson has two chores when he is at our house, setting the table and making his bed, yet I can't tell you how frequently he bemoans having to do EVERYTHING around here. You see when Cinderella lived alone with her dad, things like eating at a table and basic sanitary conditions went out the window. Men do not see mess, so Cinderella's dad couldn't have told you if Cinderella even had sheets on her bed much less whether or not it was made. And dinner, he just wanted to eat it in front of the TV. Then in comes the horrible stepmother with her family dinners and hygiene requirements and suddenly Cinderella's life of sloth came to an end. And those ugly stepsisters, obviously when they weren't willing to put up with her attitude and complaining about all. those. chores., it was because they were jealous of her beauty. Too bad they didn't write a follow-up to Cinderella after she is married and has kids and then finds out what it really means to have to do everything around here.

Hansel and Gretel- Hansel and Gretel's single dad liked to do whatever kept his kids happy and out of his hair. If that meant playing with dwarf figures (or whatever the old time equivalent to video games would be) and eating junk 19 hours a day, so be it. When his new wife moved in she was appalled at H &G's pasty complexions and rotund figures. So she took it upon herself to make some changes. Some might say she was overstepping, but she really had their best interest at heart and quite frankly the family couldn't afford to keep buying all that junk food after the snack tax was instated. First she started making them eat vegetables, which really pissed H&G off. They were used to getting their way all the time with their dad. So they were none too amused when one sunny day, their stepmom had their dad make them go outside and not come back....for at least an hour. In desperate need of a candy fix, H&G went off to steal some candy from the old lady down the road, home invasion style. The joke was on them when the old lady turned the tables on them. By the time their dad found them, they had revised their story so that "they had been deserted and the old lady had candy on the outside of her house. We thought it was free and then she just went crazy on us."

OK. I got a little off topic in that last one, but those two German brats (ha ha) have always seemed a little shifty to me. And what about the mysterious death of their stepmother? Seems fishy to me.

So remember, next time you hear someone complaining about their evil stepmother, there are two side to every story. And one little brown spot won't kill you.