inside dog

Three's Company

So in the last month or so something has happened in my brain. I think ... I think this is my last pregnancy.

(You'll remember on my post about getting my tubes tied that the jury was still out on that.)

Now listen, since then my kids have hid from me in the house (that hellish day was two weeks ago), so I know what you're thinking: "Well DUH, Manda. You have your HANDS FULL, LADY." Believe me, I know. And also? When people see me with my two small children and large pregnant belly? They LOVE to remind me of that. Daily. My favorite response, by the way, is "I'm one of the lucky ones!"

And I am. I know how blessed we are to have two healthy children and to be expecting another (by all accounts) perfectly healthy baby in two months. Sometimes when I stop and think about what my life would be like without my son ... I cannot believe how incredibly blessed we are. The intervention that saved his life, and has now saved the life of this baby girl, it blows me away that their lives are possible. It blows me away that I gave birth to a 10 pound, 7 ounce baby with no complications for either of us. My mother-in-law's mother was not so lucky. Seventy years ago she gave birth to a baby boy who weighed over ten pounds, had a very similar difficult labor story to my own, and because the doctor who attended her birth was not trained on doing c-sections, my MIL's older brother died at a week old. Her mother never fully recovered physically from the shattered pelvis she endured during the birth, and worst of all - obviously - she lost her baby. What an absolute nightmare.

But none of this is here nor there. About a month ago after we decided we were a no-go on tubal ligation? I suddenly had this realization that even though I wasn't going to get my tubes tied (still am not going to!) that it didn't mean that this couldn't be my last pregnancy. It sounds so dumb to talk it out like that, it's just so simple, but for some reason it felt like if I wasn't going to get my tubes tied that the possibility of more children joining our family was still there (and I guess on a purely technical level, YES, it IS still a possibility because anything is possible if both people involved are still fertile).

What I am saying is this: I think this is it. I think this is probably my last baby.

When I was pregnant with Elijah I never felt this clarity. (There! That is the word I have been looking for during the endless writing of this blog post, writing that has been interrupted roughly 856 times by my demanding 4 YO. Which I realize is oh, ho, haa haa SO IRONIC). Even when things were extremely difficult I never thought during that pregnancy that it would be my last one. I wondered about it A LOT, but I never felt clear on it.

Clarity is a strange beast. It kind of takes you by the shoulders and looks you in the eye and dares you to look away. It asks you, "But are you SURE? Are you OKAY with this?" And I suppose that when the answer is a shrug back and a simple, unhesitant "yes" you just know. And you just move forward and you don't look back anymore. When I figured this whole thing out it was just ... a relief. I can move on from pregnancy. I can move on from worrying about miscarriage, taking progesterone, gaining and losing weight, all the important and trivial things that come with this territory. When this baby is done with her baby things we can let them go for good. We can make plans. We can make space in our lives for what is next that is not babies. And don't get me wrong, babies are an awesome dream. But I'm ready for what's next. I'm ready for our family to go on to what is next. I'm ready to meet this little girl and give her a name and move her into our home. I've got dreams brewing for us all. For myself.

I know we will still have our moments. We will probably talk about more children from time to time (my husband looked across the table at me just the other night - which was fairly brave of him considering I'm miserably lodged in the third trimester - and said, "But wouldn't it be nice for Elijah to have a brother?"). But in this moment I have peace. I have clarity. And it feels really good.

Awake, o sleeper. Rise up.

On Monday I experienced the most terrifying moment I have had as an adult and as a parent. I have contemplated how to process through it, gone back and forth about whether I should write about it here. I thought about writing an anonymous post to Ask Moxie to see what she and other people had to say about this. But you know what? It's ok. It's going to be ok. I want to put a face on this for you. Because if it hasn't happened to you already, it probably will. And when it does I want you to remember me and remember that it's going to (most likely) be all right.

So here it goes. On Monday my children hid from me and wouldn't come out. I couldn't find them. I'd sent them ahead of me into the house ... we ate lunch in the back yard and Sydney suddenly had to go potty. The back door was open and I sent her inside to go to the bathroom while I gathered up the dirty plates and cups to bring inside. Of course her brother followed her (he follows her everywhere!). I took maybe 3 minutes picking up everything, then brought it inside and dumped it in the kitchen sink. I stood in the kitchen for a moment and pulled on my husband's sweatshirt that was hung over a chair. I stood there listening. It was too quiet. It was the kind of quiet that happens when little people are Up To No Good. So I called to them. I set off into the house (which is not a big one!) to find out what they were up to. I walked past the spare room and flipped on the light. Empty. I walked past their bedroom, the light was already on, and stepped inside the doorway to peek around and see if they were in the closet. Nope. And on to the bathroom ... no one there. And into my bedroom. Quiet. I walked through to the master bath and pushed open the door, that room was empty too. Huh. "This is weird." I thought to myself. I scanned over my messy room and unmade bed. I think I even set my laptop down on the bed at that point.

Sydney lately has a bad habit of hiding from me when she hears me coming and she's being sneaky. We've been having a lot of problems with her sneaking food and candy in the kitchen (we had to throw out all the Easter candy after she somehow climbed up and reached candy in a ceiling-height cabinet - and that was after she'd climbed over an "extra-high" baby gate to get into the kitchen). She knows that I have a stash in my bedside table (pregnant!) and has been caught sneaking Hershey Kisses enough times that I finally moved that stash to a higher drawer in John's dresser. And we keep our bedroom gated most of the time because she sneaks into my bathroom and gets into trouble and leads her brother there. And he? He still likes to play in the toilet. Basically they both know that my bedroom is off limits and so it's their favorite place to try to get into. Sigh.

After I'd scanned my bedroom and bathroom I walked back out and then noticed that they'd pushed the baby gate down to get in. My thought was that they'd found something interesting and scampered off to hide somewhere else in the house to eat it and/or not get caught with it. Another favorite thing to swipe is Daddy's iPod, which is usually on his bedside table. I walked back out through the hallway, listening hard for giggles, scanning for a little eyeball watching me from some dark place. Usually Elijah is the one to give them away. While his sister hides me innocently runs a toy car back and forth along the carpet, or laughs when he hears me come near. That was what was weird ... I couldn't find my son anywhere either. I went back to the kitchen. I looked in their favorite hiding spots out front, under the table in the corner between the couches and in the coat closet. I went back outside thinking they'd snuck back out when I was inside looking. Our house has a fenced in back yard, but the fence goes along each side of the house and makes two alleyways, and the kids sometimes hide there under their beach towels or a chair. Not there.

At this point I was starting to get a bit scared. I came back inside and headed toward the front door, thinking they'd snuck out front - also a big no-no (they have, admittedly, done this once or twice before). All morning there'd been men working at the next door neighbors' house - tearing up the driveway with jackhammers and sledgehammers and making a ton of noise. It was garbage day and trucks had been tearing up and down the street all day. When I came out and called the kids it was deathly quiet, the street abandoned. It was odd. Not enough time had passed for the kids to get very far, Elijah is not that fast, and no one was outside and there was not a sign of them anywhere. I came back inside the house and cycled through all the rooms again, calling to Sydney and pleading with her to please come out. Nothing. I went back outside and peeked into both next door neighbors' yards, thinking maybe they'd gone to visit neighbor dogs. Nope.

And this? Is when I completely lost my mind. I ran back out into the street screaming for the kids. A neighbor pulled into his driveway across the street and I screamed to him that I couldn't find my kids. I ran back into the house and dialed John, who was getting a haircut, and unintelligbly started screaming and crying into the phone that I couldn't find our kids. "WHERE ARE THEY?! I CAN'T FIND THEM! I THINK SOMEONE TOOK THEM!" I ran screaming back into the house. All through the rooms. All through the backyard again. "SYDNEY PLEASE!" I ran back outside and dialed 911. At this point 15 minutes had elapsed and I was positive that they'd wandered out the front door, someone had passed in a car, loaded them up and taken them away. It was the only explanation that made any sense. I banged on a neighbor's door. I flagged another two neighbors down in their cars and they drove around the block looking. Another neighbor set out on foot. John tore home from his haircut and ran through the house and found nothing. He came back outside bewildered after searching the house and yard and I yelled at him to get into the car. I saw another neighbor drive into her driveway - a neighbor that I didn't even know by name - and tried to navigate the options for 911 while screaming at her that someone had taken my kids. "They're 4 and 2!" I told her. She grabbed my arm. She looked at me and said "They're 4 and 2! They HAVE TO BE IN YOUR HOUSE!" And she left me on the curb and burst into my house with every intention of turning it upside down until she found them.

And there? In the hallway? Were my children.

It had been 20 minutes.

I was on my neighbor's heels, because for some reason when she said they had to be in the house I believed her. When I found them there in the doorway I crumpled onto them both. Screaming and crying all over them. My daughter said, "Mommy. You're squeezing me too hard. Mama! Calm down!" I sat there on the floor of our entryway and sobbed all over those kids. My daughter confessed that they'd been hiding under my bed. That they'd been sneaking candy in our room. Two of our neighbors were there and they went outside and told my husband and the five other neighbors - one of whom was also in hysterical tears - who were looking for them that we'd found them. My phone rang, the 911 operator who had finally picked up the call had heard me screaming and crying was checking back to find out what was going on. I somehow composed myself enough to take the kids back into the yard. I called John to find out where he was and cried my head off all over again. He was suddenly there with his arms around me. I was sitting at our patio table again with no idea how I'd gotten there, the children tooling around in the sandbox like nothing had happened.

When I finally calmed down, my pride started to get the better of me. I hadn't even thought to look under my bed because there's so much stuff in there there'd be no way two kids could fit under there (I later realized they'd been flattened under my comforter. And I figured it out that night because my bed was full of sand from their sand box). I'd panicked, which is the opposite of what you'd hope you'd do if something like this ever happened. I'd called my husband and until he'd arrived at home he had no idea what happened, he just knew it was something terrible. The neighbors must all think I'm a terrible mother. I must have looked crazy, running out in the street pregnant with my sweatpants on, unshowered in the middle of the day, screaming that I'd lost my children who had been in the house the whole time.

Thank God I have great friends who said: "WHEN this happened to ME" and commiserated with us that their children had done something similar at some point and the police had been called and the neighbors had seen them completely lose their shit in the street. Three families have told us that their kids have done this. I remember doing this to my mother when I was about Sydney's age (SORRY MOM I WAS THE WORST). It is a rite of passage of parenthood, I suppose, that moment when you have to go all Scared Straight on your kids.

(and oh dear lord the discipline that has gone on in this house the last few days. It has shaved even more years off the end of my life.)

That night as I read stories with my children and prayed and sang our goodnight songs, it occurred to me that some part of my innocence about having children had died. Just the night before I'd sung "You Are My Sunshine" without a twinge of it ever being possible for me to wake up one morning and not have my children in my arms. It - quite pathetically - had never really truly registered in my brain that there was any possibility that anything horrific could even happen to my children. That they could be stolen. That they could be hurt. That they could be killed. And this was on MONDAY, you guys. The day bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon and killed an 8-year-old boy and seriously wounded his mother and one of his siblings. If that doesn't hit close to home for me WHAT DOES? I am the wife of a man who attends the finish lines of MANY major marathons a year. He works at them. He runs in them. I take my children with me to race courses ALL THE TIME. This is not to say I am not one of those overprotective mothers. I AM. I write my phone number on my childrens' arms when we go on class field trips (even when I am THERE). I never leave them unsupervised. My daughter is smart and sneaky and I hardly EVER let my guard down, as tired and pregnant as I am these days. I only let her go on play dates at parents' houses who I know are totally freaked out about things happening to their own children (LIKE ME). I don't leave her alone to go and shower or do really anything in another room because she always figures out a way to get into trouble. I don't want her to get hurt. She is attracted to things she knows she's not supposed to do.

And yet? I woke up. On Monday I woke up.

Parenting is hard for me. I feel like maybe it comes easy to some people but for me? Every day it is challenging. And that is really hard for a person like me because I feel like most things I've tried in my life I've succeeded at pretty naturally. School was never hard for me. I was good at my professional life. I think I'm decent at being married. And yet when it comes to raising children? There are some days when I feel like maybe I did ok, but they don't happen every day. I mostly feel like I'm always playing catchup, never accurately anticipating what is to come. I want to find the best words for my kids. I want them to feel loved, to know they are treasured. I want them to be disciplined. I want them to be spoiled. I love them so much it makes my heart ache. I want them to feel safe, but I want them to survive. I don't want them to be shocked when they find out what the world is really like but I want to protect them from it as long as I can. And maybe in the end that is what makes a person a good parent? That feeling that there is always more to do? There are always ways to improve? The knowledge that I am a fool and I will never be able to do this on my own?

What's crazy to me is that I get one shot at this. They get one childhood and it is happening now. Sydney is going to remember this one day when she is 32 and her 4-year-old hides from her. She is going to remember the words I said and the look on my face even if I don't.

And so I guess as much as it sucks, and as hard as it was, I'm glad I woke up a little more. It is my turn to be awake and their turn to sleep.

 

Ephesians 5: 14-17

"This is why it is said,'Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light.' So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise.  Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do."

In which my son will not eat his dinner

Oh you guys. This dude. He's in a phase.

What? An "Oh my goodness he is SO super cute!" phase? Well, yes. That too. But also? He's doing this thing where he WILL. NOT. EAT.

Now wait, before you send me packing off to the pediatrician let me clarify: He snacks. He enjoys snarfing an entire banana on the couch while watching Sesame Street. He will eat Goldfish crackers hand over fist out of a baggie in his car seat. He loves Gogurt, cereal bars, string cheese, squeezy applesauce, waffles, and the occasional peanut butter and jelly. He will eat as much orange chicken or spaghetti and meatballs as you put in front of him (usually). He likes grapes, blackberries, strawberries, blueberries, and gnawing on (whole) apples. He chugs almond milk. He steals my potato chips and fizzy fruit juice and homeboy LURVES cheese pizza. He will eat a cut up hot dog after he's licked all the ketchup off his plate, he will usually eat dino chicken nuggets if he's hungry. He'll even bite the top off steamed broccoli! So? Manda! WHAT'S YO PROBLEM LADY?

Most nights? If it's on a plate and on the table he wants nothing to do with it. He won't sit in his booster seat because his sister no longer sits in one, and when we try to put him in one he gets so distressed that there's no point even TRYING to encourage him to eat. And yet, getting him to sit down and eat a meal is torture for all of us. Breakfast is a fun game of keep the 2-year-old off the couch with his waffle, if it's nice out we'll eat lunch outside and the dog steals half of it, and dinner? Oh my word I HATE DINNER.

I work to make a nice meal that will appeal to everyone. Sydney is a great eater and will usually eat most of what I put in front of her (she does, however, have trouble keeping her booty planted in her seat, which is a huge contributing factor to this issue). We've tried getting him a special plate with his PHOTO on it and Mater and Lightning McQueen! And special forks just for him! We've tried holding out on snacks so he'll eat with us at dinner. We've tried just letting him ignore dinner ... and learned the hard way (AT FOUR IN THE MORNING) that his empty tummy just wakes him up early and we are ALL punished for that. I've given in and gotten him a container of yogurt and some crackers instead of his dinner and he'll eat THAT ... which to me says that he is indeed hungry but there is some other AHEM STUBBORN issue going on, but it causes problems with his sister. Oh how I appreciate my Syd at times like this. She has always been a great eater, was always content to sit in her high chair or in her booster, always willing to try new things and always dependable when it came to food. This guy? Whoa is he a monkey wrench.

So, this is to say? HELP. How do you deal with dinner? How do you get your (little) kids to eat? This article was helpful to me but I think my son is still a little too young for this to work. What do you do? Do you make a separate kids' meal? Do you just serve up a tray full of snacks and wait for the phase to pass? Training obstinate children sure is fun!

"While we have you open."

When I visited the perinatologist last week he noticed my belly button ... it has come unattached and kind of teepees out in a weird outie. I used to have a pretty deep innie (and a six pack! But let's have a moment of silence for those another day!). This is what happens to you when you have a ten-and-a-half pound baby girl people! My belly button doesn't hurt, and it doesn't appear that anything important is poking through, and so I've learned to deal with it. Even when I lost all the weight and was all manner of fit, there was no way I wanted my shirt coming up. My friend wants me to do maternity photos (and she does BEAUTIFUL maternity photos), but ... that bellybutton is AWKWARD y'all. I just uploaded a photo of it and then deleted it, you are welcome for that. I'm not really into showing it off. It already protrudes through all my shirts like an extra nippIe. ATTRACTIVE!

However, my perinatologist said - unprompted - that he could very easily fix it with three stitches while I'm on the table this July (we are having another c-section, it's not even a discussion and I am GREAT with that). He said to just have my OB call him up to the OR - as his office is just a floor below the obstetrics wing of the hospital - "while they had me open." That kind of blew me away ... it had never occurred to me that it could be fixed. And do I want it fixed? Does a bear crap in the woods?! OF COURSE I DO!

And so when I went to see my OB on Monday I mentioned it to him. He said that we'd just have to keep it in mind and try to schedule my surgery on a Saturday because that's when our peri is around to do such things (and apparently? He's the only doctor on staff at that hospital who can do such a thing). Sweet! And then he asked me in a kind official way if I wanted my tubes tied "while they had me open."

Our answer is (and has been) firmly "no" from the beginning. We knew this question would come up and we've talked about it a lot, and we can't decide. We have not decided whether or not we want more kids (believe me, I know how crazy this sounds. I can barely handle the two I HAVE) and because of my age - I'll be 33 when the baby is born, not too old! - we don't want to commit to anything permanent. I don't feel right about it. It would indeed be convenient to not have to deal with birth control for the rest of my life, but I'm not sure I'm ready for the rest of my life to begin just yet, you know?

And it is totally weird, by the way, to have these discussions with people. It is bizarre to me that there are so many options available to me while I go in to the hospital to have a baby. When Elijah was born the doctor who stepped in for my doctor (he was on vacation the weekend before my planned c-section, when OF COURSE I went into labor) burned some fibroids off my uterus before they closed me up. Hey thanks! And this all brings me to the realization that I could go into labor sooner than planned AGAIN - and NOT on a Saturday - and won't get to get my wonky belly button fixed. Baby? Do you hear me? MAMA WANTS HER INNIE BACK.

Of course the other night as we were getting ready for bed we talked about it again and my husband said that he was surprised I didn't want it done (we have a strict policy at our house: Each person makes final decisions about his or her own body after discussing it with the other person). "Three kids," he said, "is a lot of kids." And oh boy do we have no idea how right he is.

So, c-section friends? Did you have your tubes tied? Did you pass? How did you know it was the right decision? Did you have it done and then regret it?

Boys: Officially outnumbered

So! Catch up time! IT'S A GIRL!!

We found out last week, and as much as I thought I'd be shocked either way, I wasn't surprised to hear it was a girl. It actually made sense because I distinctly remember feeling cruddy for most of my pregnancy with Syd and welp, history has repeated this time. Sydney also has firmly stated from the beginning that THIS is a girl baby because she already HAS a little brother and now she NEEDS a little sister. I tend to agree with her.

On an unrelated note, anyone have any old superhero costumes in the 2-3T range?

We are really all so pleased. The baby is in perfect health and I'm doing just fine. We've passed all the screenings and all looks well. I've gained an acceptable 10 pounds (total) now, and I'm starting to feel it. I won't be bragging about being a twee pregnant lady any longer. In the last few weeks things have changed dramatically. The baby had a surge in growth, apparently, and so did I! One day I woke up and things just hurt. My joints, my pelvis, my back. Everything felt tight and weird and well lookie there! Stretch marks! Dangit.

People are now firmly aware that I'm pregnant and when I tell them I have four months to go I get the "Oh wow! Poor thing!" look instead of the "Woah! Really? I didn't even know you were pregnant!" thing. Whoops. I guess all that greek yogurt and cheese (and Valentine candy! and bread! And! And!) is starting to do the job. I have to admit, it's fun to feel like eating again and to not feel like death after everything goes down. The only problem is that I need a nap after every meal and sometimes in between. My energy level has officially hit the skids. My favorite activities now include lying in my bed reading, lying in my bed watching t.v., and lying in my bed eating. See you in July!

Something about having a baby girl just seems right to me. We've pretty much got her named already (which wasn't the case with our son, hoo buddy). I'm so excited that Elijah will be a big brother to a little girl and that Syd will have a brother AND a sister! I'm excited that John and Elijah will have to come up with escape plans because of all the estrogen (HA!) and I love the father he already is to our daughter. He's a great dad for a girl. And so here we go. It feels real now. Family of five. Two daughters and a son. Crazy!

Second child syndrome

I was looking back at my archives, trying to investigate the details of my last pregnancy, and I realized something: This blog used to have one huge topic and her name is Sydney. I spent a lot of time chronicling her every breath, things like her first Band-Aid and other important milestones. But this dude? My Elijah?

Well, he exists. But not much on this blog. Poor kid.

Elijah turned two this past October. TWO! And now he's nearing two and a HALF! And then? AND THEN? In July he'll be a BIG BROTHER! He'll be a ... middle child?! My lands. This is terrible. Because? Because remember THIS?

My sweet, hairy-headed little baby boy has turned into this:

A buzzcut-wearing, big-footed little boy who loves trucks and trains, has big feet like his dad, who says intelligible sentences sometimes, and who has peed in the toilet THREE TIMES. He has brown eyes, dimples, and always some kind of scab on his face or kness.

He loves Buzz Lightyear, Mater, and Thomas the train. He could sit and make train tracks and wind long strings of magnetic train sets along them for hours. He lines up all his favorite cars on the couch, the ottoman, the tv cabinet. He does not like to sit at the table to eat (or to eat really, except for breakfast and snacks), but will only deign to sit there in a big boy chair (NOT his booster seat).

He sleeps in a big boy bed now.

He is definitely a mama's boy. He loves to hug and smooch and snuggle. He is super, crazy grumpy when he gets up from nap. He wants to walk everywhere and not be held and not ride in the stroller. If his sister messes with him too much he screams bloody murder then pulls her hair. He is ALL BOY.

His daddy is his hero.

He is a dog person.

And his sister? Well. She's his best friend and his favorite person on planet earth.

This little boy fascinates me. He is so different from his sister in every way. I love parenting a little boy. I love how two children can be born into the same family and have the same parents and yet be so, so different. I love his sweet spirit and his grumpy butt. I love how brave he is, and how he can be so brave and yet not all that competitive. He is precious and wonderful and two (!) and a boy (!) and I marvel at it all.

When his sister came, she was (and is) my light and joy. This guy? He's my heartbreaker, my little pal. He's going to be an amazing big brother.

(Let's just hope baby #3 makes it up on this here blog at least once. Just to be fair.)

Third time around

Well, y'all. It's my third rodeo. My third time in the 2nd trimester. I'm 18 weeks along this week and things seem notably different this time. Maybe it's my war-torn and useless immune system (a warning to anyone who gets pregnant in the fall with a preschooler!) that robs me of any desire to gorge on food 24 hours a day. Maybe it's those two marathons I ran last year. Maybe it's these two kids I chase all over kingdom come instead of taking NAPS (oh I would love a nap). Maybe pants are vanity sized and low slung to the extreme that pregnant women can get away wearing a regular size 10 into mid-pregnancy.

But for some odd reason? I'm still wearing mostly regular clothes. Namely my pants. My jeans. And not just my fat jeans. MY SKINNY JEANS which are actually SKINNY JEANS. With a belt even!

This sweaterdress is probably the least flattering maternity thing I own. But oh DUDE is it comfy. So. This is the largest version of myself right now, as the eye beholds.

This all is very odd to me because I am generally known as the largest pregnant woman on planet earth. With Syd (who weighed in at 10 pounds, 7 ounces) my entire body was pregnant. My FACE was pregnant. I could barely move by the end, and that weight - mostly Taco Bell might I add - was HARD to lose. With Elijah (who at two weeks early weighed in at 8 pounds, 13 ounces), I lost the weight more quickly, and I think it's because I retained a lot of water with him. At this point with him my rings were getting too tight and I couldn't get some of my shoes on. And you'd better believe I was in ALL maternity clothes at 18 weeks in my pregnancies with my other two kids.

People keep telling me I look so great and can't believe I'm already almost halfway done! I wore a t-shirt to school dropoff the other day and a mom stopped me and said that she couldn't even tell I was pregnant! It's all going to my head people. Last night I ate a Kit Kat and THEN a Twix bar because "OH NOES! I AM WASTING AWAY!" I have gained like three pounds (only) and I want an award. It's like I DON'T know that I'll be up to 204 pounds AGAIN by June (I am holding out hope that I won't be. I am hoping and trying to be careful to NOT gain 15 more pounds by my checkup in 2 weeks - oops Kit Kat and Twix bar - which is pretty much what I did with Elijah). I know none of this matters. It only matters that I'm healthy and the baby's healthy, and that it's weird that I crave veggie burgers. But I will say, it's NICE to be able to wear the clothes I have this long. It's nice to be able to get around. It's nice to only have minor, manageable hip pain now and then if I've been on my feet all day.

I sound like such a rookie. The 2nd trimester is great. I'll see you in a few months when I'm whining my face off about being fat and uncomfortable, ok?

OK.

Tide revisted: The blood of virgins and deals with the devil

After I posted about Tide this week my friend Erica sent me the link to this super interesting New York Times article about how Tide is being stolen and has a high street value. Like ... people steal bottles of Tide and sell it on the street or trade it for drugs. WHAT? I had to share the link here to get your feedback. The article also covers a lot of the history of Tide and how they market it and dudes, they totally got me ... when the laundry is clean and folded and put away I feel like a better person and parent. I DO.

Suds For Drugs.

(and for the record, I'm still not giving up my precious Tide. I swear it works the best. I have tried them ALL.)

What are your thoughts?

In which I go crawling back to Tide

I have tried many experiments in my life as a young adult. I once tried to go no 'poo and a few weeks later - with a crusty, oily scalp - went crawling back to Tresemmé and never looked back. I tried to use non-toxic cleaning products and the only ones that have stuck are the Kirkland "environmentally friendly" dish soap I buy in bulk at Costco, the hand soap I make from castile soap using this method, and my beloved Method surface spray. Everything else I use involves bleach or some sort of scent or toxins that tree-huggers disapprove of. I TRIED. But I need POWER in my cleaning products. I need HOSPITAL clean around here (especially these days).

My philosophy on cleaning stuff is this: If it works the best, I will use it. If it doesn't work, I won't, even if it IS good for the environment, non-toxic, etc. For example? The dish soap and hand soap we now use in our house solved my wedding ring dermatitis issue. That's right! When I started using the castile soap and water formula to refill our foaming soap dispensers my finger TOTALLY cleared up and I've been able to wear my wedding rings around the clock for the last few months. SOLD.

So, I once ranted and raved about the virtues of Charlie's Laundry Soap. Remember that? We are about halfway through the tub I bought in September, which I think is pretty good. I do laundry for a family of four (one of whom works out 3-4 times a week, two of whom are MESSY CHILDREN), we have a friend living with us right now who does laundry here, and we often let friends do their laundry on our back porch laundry station. It's no wonder the large appliance repairman has to visit our house about twice a year, eh? I have appreciated not having to buy a $20 jug of Tide every week (and sometimes every other week) since September. But in the last month or so, particularly through the last two weeks of barf laundry I've been doing, I've been noticing that our clothes aren't getting as clean as I'd like (ahem HOSPITAL clean is my standard).

I concede that preschool clothes get trashed, and there's not really anything to get them 100% clean. And our washing machine is on it's last legs. But as my husband searched through his closet to find a pair of jeans to pack on his business trip the other day and couldn't tell which ones were clean or not (and that's partly his fault because he sometimes hangs dirty jeans back up instead of putting them in the dirty clothes basket), I paused. When I sniffed at a pair of my son's newly washed pants to discover they still smelled like the rancid poopie diapers he'd been having thanks to the stomach bug our family passed around last week, I recoiled (dudes I am pregnant, BAD SMELLS OFFEND ME). And when I plucked a pair of my own washed underpants out of my drawer post-shower yesterday to find that they were not clean? I WAS DONE. I washed a load of laundry THREE times yesterday as a test with Charlie's and checked the same soiled item each time to discover that it was STILL dirty. Sorry, Charlie. I marched myself immediately to the neighborhood grocery store and bought a box of these:

Tide PODS in spring meadow.

I re-washed the same load and MAGICALLY? It was all spanking clean. I don't know how they do it (blood of virgins? Deal with the devil? I honestly do not care but I'm pretty sure they're in touch with the same guys who invented Mr. Clean Magic Erasers). I'll admit, when I opened the lid of the washing machine the scent was pretty overpowering after months of using unscented detergent, but I couldn't deny how much cleaner our clothes were. After a few loads of wash the scent didn't bother me as much and I have to tell you, I really love these little premeasured packs. I was attracted to them because I also buy my favorite dishwasher detergent in premeasured packs because it helps me "portion control" ... I'm the type of person who squirts in way too much detergent pretty consistently and can burn through bottles of the liquid stuff quickly. This solved my problems with the dishwasher stuff and maybe this will help me stretch the laundry soap further.

I think the Charlie's soap is fine for loads that are not heavily soiled, and I'll keep using it for that purpose (and of course keep it out for our friends to use). But these little POD thingies? These are MINE. My only hope and prayer is that by the time this baby is born and brings all his or her poop, pee, and spitup laundry into my life (SQUEE! BABY!) that they'll be making these PODS in unscented.

I'm so curious to hear if you've tried these and what your favorite laundry shortcuts, tips and tricks are, especially ones that save money. I'm thankful to Charlie's for at least curing me of my dryer sheet habit ... they really aren't necessary unless I'm doing a load of Elijah's fleecy footie pajamas or blankets, and it was WAY better than the laundry soap I was making on my own in my food processor.

(this is not a sponsored post. It's just a product that I like and I think you'll like too.)

Quiet hope

Lest you think I am lost to dark thoughts as I post them here (I promise you I am not), I want to share this song. It blesses me. There is hope for the future in this house, quiet as it might be. We are fighting against the tide of darkness and we are winning. One day at a time.

We will see you soon, Huckleberry friend.

(and thank you all for encouraging me and letting me be myself in this space. Writing through this has been so, so helpful for me. xo.)