twotothree

Becoming a mother has somehow made me into a type A personality. I used to store leftover dinner – which was usually something along the lines of tater tots and Tyson chicken – in the oven and let the refrigerator clean itself once it got so dirty that spills fermented and absorbed each other. Now my free time is spent obsessively looking for ways to organize my spices. Or standing for twenty minutes in front of my dining room table, trying to figure out how I can arrange it so the holiday centerpiece looks just –so-.

I know how to cook decently well. I’m good at baking. Instead of solving the mysterious smell of the carpet by simply mouth-breathing, I have a homemade deodorizing concoction that works wonders. It really bothers me on the occasion that I can’t clean the house before going to bed. (Is there anything worse than waking up to a messy house??)

I’m guessing this transformation was caused by one part motherhood, one part downsizing to part-time work hours, and one part Pinterest.

Anyway, the problem with this new persona is that it really stresses me out now that I can’t obsessively scrub the floors or bake something containing the term “Bain-Marie” in the recipe. I’m thirty-five weeks pregnant and I have SPD** (Hyperemesis Gravidarum in the first twenty weeks, a Subchorionic Hemorrhage during weeks 23-28, and recently diagnosed Gestational Diabetes – when will it end??) and I can barely walk, let alone stand for more than ten minutes or go up stairs.

**SPD is, in medical terminology, the act of your pelvic bone being forcefully split in two by the giant demon fetus that has set up camp in your abdomen.**

I don’t normally like to publicly complain, but I just want to be able to eat a half-gallon of cookie dough ice cream while knowing that my crotch isn’t minutes from cracking in half. Too much to ask?

However! Only four more weeks. “But Amber, 35 plus 4 only equals 39, and pregnancy is 40 weeks long.” No, because screw you. Gloria came ten days early, and so will this one. If I can say that I only have four weeks left, I can grin and eat my nasty protein bar, and hold my pelvis together with a belt, and force myself to be generally pleasant. If I have to say that I have five weeks left, I’m going to make somebody cry.

Part of the stress is solely on my own shoulders, since Mike and I are putting our house on the market on October 1^st. There’s so much to do between now and then in terms of getting it market-ready, and I can barely remove myself from the couch. A newborn, a toddler, showing the house, finding a new home, and the holidays? What an epiphany that was. It’s going to be crazy, but I’m really excited about getting out of starter-home territory and finding our coffin home. (You know, the last house you plan on buying, the one you’re likely to die in.) No, I really am excited. I swear there’s no sarcasm in there, though maybe a bit of midlife crisis foreshadowing.

Now for photos! I haven’t updated this since February, so be prepared to see a shockingly adult-like Gloria. She’s running around like a madwoman now, wearing my shoes and carrying my purse. Saying surprisingly grown-up things like, “MAMA it’s NIGHT-NIGHT!!” when I’m late putting her to bed, and “It’s a butt!!” while sticking her hand down her diaper.

The best part about having an older toddler is that she can get involved with and is entertained by pretty much whatever you’re doing. (Although this can also be the worst part about having an older toddler, like when you have to pee for the fifteenth time that morning and she needs come into the bathroom with you and then figure out exactly where that water sound is coming from.) So we’ve been crafting quite a bit, too, as evidenced in the photos below.