He's here, he's here! He's...been here.

And he's perfect.

My little boy Gray will be one month tomorrow. A month! It feels like it was two lifetimes ago. I'm sure even longer for my Phinny Phin. Boyfriend had his world rocked and his head is still spinning.

I've been wrapping my head around writing this post for a while, but crap, I'm just too effing tired. Let's do this Mel style (aka the lazy way) and throw up some bullet points.

-blood pressure never could be put in its place. A couple million pills didn't help. Just made me incredibly useless as a human being.
-fibroids couldn't be tamed resulting in nighttime er visits with me begging for drugs. And lotsa percocet.
-bedrest. I suck at bedrest. It was a good thing though. I was getting to the point that when Jared dropped me off at work I would make him circle the blocks around my office for five or ten minutes while I cried and worked up the energy to go in.
-Ob decided to induce me at 34 weeks because my body couldn't be pregnant anymore. I cried when she told me I was so happy. I then apologized, which I do a lot around doctors, and she made me feel better by telling me I dealt well with a terrible pregnancy. I don't know if she says that to all her wimpy patients the size of commercial airliners, but it made me feel oh so good. I tried hard not to be the patient that complained. I chose to get pregnant knowing that it would be painful. But gd, it sucked.
-Baby was born and baby was a boy! A big boy! 5 lbs 6 oz big!
-I fell in love. The rest of the world did too. Even Phin. He loves his Gray, it's me he's pissed at. Sweet thing.

Then things got tough. Gray couldn't come home with us. What was supposed to be an extra day turned into three weeks. Three very long weeks where the magic onion rings of the hospital cafeteria lost all their power. By the end of his stay they were just crappy, fried food. Even nacho day lost it's appeal the third time around. Feeding your baby at 2:30 in the morning is sucky enough when you aren't required to wear pants. I just couldn't get away with an oversized t-shirt and granny panties in the hospital nursery. Don't judge, I just had a baby.

More on this later.

He's home. I am so happy. We are so happy. We have two perfect for us children. The very, very best little boys.

Who wants a pregnancy update?

Yup. That's what I looks like. Sunglasses indoors? You don't want to see what's under those suckers. So for fun I thought I'd fill out one of those little surveys that all the Mom bloggers do. Warning. I hate these things. 


How far along - 28 weeks. Measure 41ish. Forty freaking one. With twelve weeks to go. 123456789101112. 


Weight Gain - HAHAHAHAHAHA. HA! It helps that my stomach has been shoved up near my throat for months. If you aren't disgusted, you aren't getting it.


Maternity clothes - I out grew my Phinny pregnancy clothes at thirty seconds into this gig.  

Stretch marks - Millions. And millions. I use five creams, drink 140 oz of water a day and have a mother who didn't get a single one in five pregnancies. Suck it genetics.  

Sleep - There is a reason for those sunglasses humans. 

There is still a hundred or so questions to this thing and I can't do it. Let's summarize. I'm miserable but try to picture meeting this babe. Can't wait, can't wait, can't wait! Boy? Girl? Whatever? I can't wait!

I'm human so while I am so incredibly grateful I'm pregnant, I am capable of recognizing that the daily 'broid pain in addition to having third trimester symptoms for this entire ride would take a toll on anyone. I haven't been able to take a full breath since January. I've peed so much that my hands got a rash from washing them so frequently (bet you haven't heard that one), and I have episodes at work where I literally can not understand what people are saying to me. English words. That language I'm supposed to be pretty fluent in.

Plus my butt is starting to get flat. On the bright side, no third nipple has appeared. What, what! Mel -1, Pregnancy - 399. Better that 400 yo. 

Can't wait!

Summa time!

I don't know why pregnant ladies complain about being knocked up in the summer. It's the best. Let's compare.

Winter - Dark, dark world. Ever expanding derriere on the couch. It's dark. Too cold to eat ice cream. Too freaking big to get a proper hug while you shiver, like I said, in the dark.

Summer - The sun shines on you while you eat watermelon. Did I mention you're eating on the beach? The one you just hiked down to because you are so extremely healthy and fit? Your butt has never looked better.

That's me! I'm summer. Except I almost threw up after the hike down. I didn't have any watermelon and the only reason my butt didn't black out the sun was because my belly had that covered. Someone can alert Scientific America to the real reason behind that recent eclipse.

Astronomy aside, I stand by my statement. Summer is one thousand percent better. Phin agrees. Despite the fact that Grandpa had to save his life today (maybe a slight exaggeration), he keeps saying "Do again. Want to go to beach again. I went underwater." That last part is where Grandpa had to step in. Phin swears it was unnecessary.

I owe you more but some drunk guy in Save Mart convinced Lesco to buy Marie Calendar's mac and cheese with uncured ham and I'm debating whether or not that is an appropriate 10 pm snack. Plus we just started Merlin on Netflix and it's not too shabby.

My husband digs me, my belly is big and so is my baby.

We were lying in bed this morning watching the sun rise when my dashing husband said the most romantic thing to me.

“ Hey Mel.”

“Hmm?”

“If we got divorced and I married someone new, I’d cheat on her to be with you.”

Awesome. Ten years in and the love hasn’t stopped flowing from those handsome lips of his.

Not the only demonstration of his unyielding devotion from the last twenty four hours. When I was too lazy to move my butt off the couch last night after expressing lofty dinner ambitions that involved me, a couple of knives and the food network, he made me a spicy meatloaf. Perfect fuel for the massive twenty mile run I went on with my running club later that night. Except replace twenty with two, run with walk and running club with Phin in a stroller.

And if we’re going to get technical replace two with one point eight nine. I hate my conscience for making me admit that.

In my defense, it took a really, really long time. First off, the stroller has an injury suffered when Phin shoved it under the treadmill while I was running on it. For real running. Swear. Ok, maybe gripping my stomach, begging for mercy and half jogging while Jared held a blow dryer to my face on the cool setting. I’m guessing Phin was just trying to stop the beast that appeared to be killing his mother. Either way that front tire is now wack.

Second, we had to stop and admire every green garbage can. Doesn’t help that today is garbage day. They were lining the streets.  

Last, I’m ginormous. That too puts a damper on my athletic prowess.  I have a ‘broid all up in my lungs. Nothing like giant, harmless tumors to slow a girl down. I currently measure fifteen weeks ahead. That’s an improvement. My belly has the shelf thing going on. 

See?

I won’t lie. I am so grateful to be pregnant, but dang, it’s hard this time. I hadn’t properly prepared myself for how different this go around would be. I want to be honest on this, but it’s tough when you have people jumping out of the bushes to tell you how much you suck for feeling the way you do. I know others have it much worse. I’m aware.

Really though, life is so good. I am trying to soak up every last minute as a family of three. I doubt Phin will ever remember the time he was the center of our world, but I will. I don’t want parenthood to come off as roses when it’s just not for so many, but my kid is such a crazy joy. There were plenty of tough moments that had me locking myself in the bathroom, can’t deny it when there’s pictorial evidence on this very blog, but crap. He is just so perfect for me. He still clings to me like a little spider monkey. He still pulls my face in for kisses when I get out of the car at work. He still wants his Momma when he feels his young little life has dealt him an injustice.

Now he talks to me. He tells me what he wants. He apologizes enthusiastically if his wild ways end up in a Mom/Phinny collision. He knocks on the door at five am so he can join us in bed for a few minutes before the day starts. He’ll sometimes wrap one arm around my neck and one around Jared’s. Even the thought of it makes me melt. Our life is so fun and happy. And dang that boy is beautiful. Inside and out. Old Mel is already jealous of younger Mel. I can just see myself thirty years from now yearning to relive just five of the minutes where Phin curled up in my lap and stroked my hair with tiny Phinny hands while he dozed off.

Someday I’ll have to watch him give his whole heart to someone else. And while it’s natural and there is no way I’d rather have it, the idea of someone else being the center of his life makes me ache. Clearly it’s because I picture my baby and not some grown human, but he’s my baby! Mine. I protect him. I try to make his world as safe and good as I can. It’s hard to watch the clock in the corner tick away.

My bad. A little emotional tangent snuck it’s way in. Really, I’m amazed to watch him learn so much every day. I can’t believe we’ll be starting the process over with another. Wow.

By the way, I dreamed I had a girl last night. She weighed 8lbs 2oz at twenty weeks premature. Because I had gestational diabetes (which I’m pretty sure I do but I haven’t had to take the test yet).  And she was covered in red veins and scales with a cute nose.

So if that comes true in the next day or so, I called it.

I'm a girl that loves my space. I hate when people touch me. I am not a hugger. I may like you, or even like like you, but I will not willingly wrap my arms around you unless you're choking and there is a news person around and I have to save your life. Even then, if my hair looks bad I'll probably just let Jared do it. Worse than the hug is the random shoulder massage. I'm not responsible if I flip around and karate chop your neck. It's just a reflex.

Generally Jared does not fall into the no touching zone. Lately though, our bed is getting just too small. The problem is Lesco. He has legs like fricken tree trunks. As the smaller human, it is my right to have my legs on top. He throws one on top of me and I start to lose blood flow to the lower half of my body. It came to a head while I was pregnant.

He would not stay on his side.

It eventually came to this.


The belts have come down, but it looks like they might have to be reinstated.
This morning I woke up and had a dog, a cat, a lesco and a monster in bed with me. I need a California king.