worst fears realized

& i'm not being dramatic.
with N's job, my biggest fear, aside from him being shot or run over by a car (again, as he's already been hit once), is that he will be stabbed/poked/cut/bled on by someone with contaminated blood. & yesterday, he was. in the process of arresting 2 heroin addicts for possession, he was stuck with a used needle. the addicts were already off to jail & he was processing property when it happened, so he bled the cut & took himself off to the hospital, where they did a blood work-up, & gave him some anti-HIV pills to take. he luckily was able to track down the addicts (who had already been kicked loose from jail) & get them to agree to a blood draw (in MI, this has to be consentual unless there's a warrant), so if their blood comes back clean he's in the clear. until then, he's on these giant PEP pills for 28 days, which are pretty effective at preventing HIV from taking hold as long as they're taken appropriately.
problem is, the pills are horrible. he took his first yesterday & within a few hours was hallucinating, unable to walk for dizziness, acting like he was as drunk as he's ever been & then it made him just plain sick for a hour or so before it knocked him out cold for the night. totally worth it to prevent a much worse possibility, but not fun.
this week started with me in the hospital, moved on to N in the hospital, a sick kid, & then wrapped up with N getting stuck with a junkie's needle. needless to say, not one of our best weeks ever. i'm so glad it's sunday. we could use a fresh start.

more whining. (sorry.)

my doc offically diagnosed me once again with an "irritable uterus". basically this means that i have semi-painful contractions all day long in a regular pattern that do not lead immediately to labor. this happened with the boys as well (although in their case it DID end up leading to labor), & it sucks. if you're not familiar with the feeling, think braxton-hicks with the intensity of early *real* labor pains, every 10 minutes all freaking day.
i have meds to take that help in the mornings & are useless by lunchtime, & am supposed to be taking it easy, but it's the holidays & i am on my own with 3 kids under 3 for 14 hours a day. "easy" has no place here, so unless the doc tells me this is essential to prevent labor, i plan to soldier on as usual. there's just too much stuff to get done before baby gets here.
this plan doesn't do much for my mood, however, so i've been attempting to just keep quiet if i have nothing nice to say, which is resulting in quite a lot of quiet.
i'm thinking a few moments of meditation would improve my mental state a bit, but i'm failing miserably at that as i can't seem to get comfortable, in any position, ever. maybe there's some new form of meditation that involves embracing the discomfort? i could use a few moments of peace in my days.

a fall down the stairs & back into sanity

i fell down the stairs a couple days ago while holding emma. i went the entire way on my back & she rode me like a sled, so both she & baby #4 were just fine. (shaken, but fine.) but i have been in some major pain for the past couple days & completely miserable.
the plus side to this is that for the very first time, i felt like i was ready to be done being pregnant. like really REALLY done, not just done for a while. after being continuously pregnant &/or nursing since august of 2008, (& pregnant at least once a year since 2007!) i think my body is finally done & my mind is catching up.
i was looking at pictures from last christmas, when emma was about 6 mos old, & thinking how much fun it will be to have another baby to cuddle & watch grow. i was imagining our christmas next year, with a new almost-one-year-old added to the mix & felt excited about our pending family of 6. i'm sure i'll still have pangs of wishing we could afford another child, especially if we have another boy. (not that i wouldn't love another boy-- i adore my sons. but i always wanted a sister, & i'd love for emma to have that experience. we'll get what we get though & i'm ok with that too.) anyways, while i'm sure i'll still have moments of "i wish..." i'm getting on board with 4, & i think the amount of pain i've been in has alot to do with that.
funny how a fall down the stairs could do so much to change my perspective, but maybe it knocked some sense into me.

a list, bc it's easy

i have been an absent blogger & a lame commenter lately. i still read & need to get back into the swing of things, bc blogging is no fun without the interactive part.
so as not to challenge myself too much, we're running with a list today. (apologies!)
- i hurt. my hips hurt, my back hurts, my ankles hurt & it's all keeping me from sleeping. not counting getting up to pee, i woke up 10 times between 1030pm & 5 am last night bc something hurt bad enough to wake me. i haven't been this uncomfortable sleeping since i had the twins.
- i am tired. combined with the not sleeping well, the doc tells me i have low iron & despite taking extra supplements for a week now, i feel not a bit different. my hobbies/friends/house are all suffering, bc i try to reserve my stores of patience & energy for the 3 little hoodlums & occasionally my husband.
- meat grosses me out lately. actually food in general is super unappealing unless it's ice or covered in frosting. (i know ice isn't food. it's still all i want to eat.)
- our christmas decorations are up & the kids are loving it. this is the first year i haven't had to fight N to get everything up. when he saw how much the kiddos loved christmas lights, he went out & bought loads more. so we are now "that" house on our street & i love it.
- chunk, our long-suffering toothless-wonder cat, is slowly recovering from surgery on his ear (tumors-- they removed part of his ear canal.) his weight has been up & down, & we just had his thyroid checked. N is convinced he's on his way out. i say he has at least 5 good years left. we're devoted to our critters & it sucks when they're sick.
- we got our first snow last night. (maybe an inch.... barely enough to call snow, but it was still cool.)
- i am almost done christmas shopping & am kind of excited about it.

sorry for the whiney list. i'm promising myself to suck less the next time i blog.

early baby blues?

i feel really sad lately that this will be our last child. i know, i'm nuts. we're about to have 4 kids under 3, i know how blessed we are & how insane our house is, but i still feel sad. i know that 4 is enough for us, & that this is a good & responsible place to stop. so i AM on board (mostly) with the plan for a vasectomy, but the thought of not having any more babies to love on really bums me out.
i think it's bc once you're done having kids, (as wonderful & challenging as the parenting process is) you're basically teaching your kids independence & watching them grow away from you. & for this SAHM, that's a seriously depressing thought. although maybe that's why they make the teenage years so hideous, so the leaving process is easier?
after having emma, i was actually at a place where i was ready for a break. i felt good about our little family & thought it would be fun to settle down to the business of raising kids instead of having them, but i'm not there this time. i'm hoping that after a few weeks of newborn hell i'll be back in that place & be able to feel wholely positive about our decision not to have any more kids. or maybe this is just holiday nostalgia & pregnancy hormones talking & i really am nuts.

mmmm...funfetti....

i bought funfetti cupcake mix today & am seriosuly considering making them despite the fact i still have a whole pumpkin pie sitting on my counter. i'm pretty sure i haven't made funfetti cupcakes since i was about 10, but the box was drool inducing when i saw it at the store & i couldn't stop myself. i figure i've been eating so much ice instead of food lately that i can afford some awful cupcakes. (yup, ice craving. low iron. taking supplements, still want the ice. go figure.)

a photo post with no pictures

a while ago my mom dropped off this purple courderpy jumper with matching puffed-sleeve reverse-button up top for emma. it had been mine 30 years ago & it cute is a super 1980s kind of way. my brilliant plant for christmas was to get a sears portrait taken of em in the outfit & pair it with a 30yr old sears portrait my mom had done of me in the same outfit. cute idea, right? so we dress up the kids & haul them off to sears after speech today & then spent the next 4 hours in sears photo hell.
usually we do our family photos with the photographer who shot our wedding. she only works in black & white, she doesn't use props etc, & just lets everyone play & move & shoots journalistic-style. i love it, it's very natural & totally un-posed, & also totally not what i needed for this christmas project, hence our first (& only!) venture to sears.
maybe your sears is better, but ours was sucked royally. apparently you need an appointment, they don't use real photographers, (at one point, N had to stop & show our "photographer" how to work her camera so we could finish the shoot.), & have no concept of things like time. we managed to get what we needed, but only after 1 hour of waiting for some one to make us an appointment, 2 hours of wandering the mall, 30 minutes of watching her struggle with a digital camera, & another 30 minutes of waiting for her to "process" our photos.
(did i mention that by the time we got the pictures done, emma had cut her lip, conrad had candy cane in his hair & val had a mysterious bruise appear on his forehead? yeah.... at least the photos will look realistic. we also let emma wear her skull print leggings in the photos. it just wouldn't have been "emma" without them.)
on the plus side, while we were in sears photo limbo, we stopped to see santa & the kids got to spend a half hour running around santa's village like they owned the place. (santa loved cops & his wife loved kids, so we were golden.) & we got a really cute picture of all 3 on santa's lap & all 3 smiling! (if you have more than one child, then you know what an achievement this is!)
everyone missed nap & i deserted daddy with the super cranky hoard as soon as we got done to go take a much overdue glucose test. usually drinking a cup full of horrible glucola & sitting still for an hour by myself is torture. today it was like a gift from the gods.