Finally Some Good News From/About the Gollihughs!

(make sure to read all the way to the bottom)

You Might be Pregnant If...

...you (could) go to bed at 8pm, fall asleep before 9pm, wake up every 3 hours to pee, wake up at 7am, then need a nap by 12:30pm with your 20 month old, sleep for an hour or more, and feel more than ready for bed by 8pm during your first trimester!

...you lose your vocabularly in direct relation to the number of weeks you fulfill toward gestating your newest little one.

...restrooms are rated (meaning you know where most of them are along any route you regularly travel) and you only stop at the worst ones for the greatest emergencies... and those happen far too often.  yuck.

...sleep is pretty much more attractive than anything else you might consider doing.

...feelings rise unprovoked and wash over you and explode out in completely unreasonable and disproportionate ways.

...compulsions arise anew and with a raging force that feels uncontrollable.

....you feel all fired up at times and just want to duke it out verbally.  When there is no one to exchange intelligent sparring, you just feel all tied up in knots.

...sleep is your best friend and you have either fallen asleep in unexpected places or are concerned that you may do so in the near future.

...you have to clip your nails much more frequently than normal (twice in one week? yep!).

...you feel like you must exponentially increase your Temple attendance and manage to go weekly.  Each time you go you feel relief, peace, and love that seems elusive through the rest of the week... even the couple weeks you're not able to go in to work, but hang out on the grounds with your children.  After a few weeks, you realize that you started to feel compelled to go to the Temple weekly the very first week you conceived and managed to get there once a week for 13 weeks.

...sleep... yes, may I?  It is probably the activity you most long for... all the time.

...you really think you've said one thing only to find that ALL those to whom you were speaking heard something (the same thing) that you didn't mean to say.  (Okay, so this happens to me while breastfeeding, too, but FAR more frequently during gestation!)  ^_^

...you feel compelled to clean REALLY often (and odd things that most normal folks (including your NOT-preggie self) wouldn't think often necessary of cleaning once second trimester hits.

...you find yourself sobbing over lovely music videos like THIS:



These are all relatively recent experiences.

To be perfectly plain: we are expecting sweet Golly-baby #5.  We are around half-way through this gestation.  Praise the Lord, cause it's been a rough one... in case you're wondering, since there are a few allusions to this potential truth: I am SIGNIFICANTLY more tired this time around then EVER before!  ;)  I might say exhausted and ridiculously fatigued are more accurate descriptions than "tired".

Public Notice:
If you don't have anything kind, loving and/or supportive to say about this pregnancy or the addition of #5 to our family, simply refrain from commenting here or to me in person.  And by this I mean that if you feel any desire to make any comments like: "You DO know how that happens, right?"  or, "I can tell you how to prevent this." or anything else you may consider funny... CLUE: so totally NOT actually FUNNY and I will not respond well if you choose to be a jerk by such jokes.

Truth: i heard these jokes as the eldest of 6 and did NOT appreciate them then.  I appreciate them FAR less now - especially because of the things I know about the family I hope to have.  I simply will not tolerate you making thinly veiled comments about my family whether in joke form or not.  Thank you for reading, synthesizing, and commenting in ways that are truly kind and supportive!!  ^_^  Since none of you folks who read here (or those I know in my real life) are dolts, I will leave you to consider and determine WHAT is actually kind and supportive given the above information!  :)

Oh, and, as is normal for us, we will not find out whether we're adding a boy or girl to our lil' Golly Gang until s/he is actually born.  So... you'll just have to wait along with us to find out in June!  ^_^

Thursday was Our First (and second) Day of Dance Class This Year

So, I'm pregnant. Everyone should be pretty aware of that by now, I hope. Well, there are certain memory/brain issues that somehow accompany the myriad other difficulties that plague preggie women. Thursday was a living embodiment of my brain issues. I'm CERTAIN they are (and were) complicated by the fact that my schedule is completely skewed relative to the rest of the sane population. (Ooops, did I somehow assume myself sane in that last line? Well, I think I certainly WAS compared to now!)

In addition to brain/memory/thought issues, I'm also rediculously weepy lately! No, seriously! I mean, I've heard of preggie women being emotional, but this is verging on exceptionally tedious. And not that I've been totally in control of my emotions for all that long (or even totally, for that matter), but it's really getting tiresome to have tears in my voice and pouring out of my eyes over every little thing that pulls at my heart! COME ON NOW!

Ok... so, back to dance class... sort of.

Ria, Daddy, and I have started working on a job chart/routine tracking system. (Kat has one, too, but it's MUCH more difficult to connect the reward with the activities in her case.) Ria has a total of 17 jobs she does throughout the day and earns rewards for completion of them. Over the course of a week she can earn money, a special dinner, a book, and even candy for completing full days worth of starts (ALL jobs completed). In the first 8 day period, she had SEVEN all star days! That meant that she earned, among other things, a new book that she could choose from the local book store here in town that she's wanted to visit for MONTHS! (The book had to be $2 or less.)

Since I'm not all full of gusto and gumption (meaning I'm totally lacking energy most of the time), I decided to combine our Dance class day with the Book Store trip. We literally pass right in front of it on the way to Dance, so why not! We left in plenty of time to stop for a book, get to class early so Mama could purchase dance shoes, and still have some "rest" time before class started. Or, at least I thought we did.

Well, we were in and out at the Book Store. Ria was SUPER easy to please with a Snow White book (which she read from start to finish on the way home from Dance!! and it's NOT an easy reader!!). It cost me only $1.75! ^_^ I was worried it would be difficult to find a book for under $2, but, thankfully, the store carries TONS of used books. I think the book stop was a bit too fast, really....

We arrived at Ria's studio in plenty of time to make our purchase and relax, I thought. I was able to get Ria some ballet slippers. Initially we received leather ones with flowers on the lining, which Ria was TOTALLY excited about, "Mama, they look like everyone else's!" But they were just right or barely too small, which we canNOT afford (replacing them in a month or less, PSHAW!). So, we received some canvas ones just like her previous slippers to try on. I like these as they look more like little ballet slippers to me, but Ria was obviously disappointed. She was NOT snotty about it, but her countenance was downcast, "Mama, I don't like these so much." I tried to build them up, but she wasn't consoled. Though she didn't complain or carp at all after the one comment. Strangely enough, to me, my heart hurt SO bad over this incident! I'm actually going to purchase her some leather slippers for Christmas because I know it will be THE hit of a gift (we're only giving one gift to each child this year because we're using any other money for camping/preparedness stuff).

There were TONS of parents present. There were at LEAST 15 girls in this class (which is the HIGH number for our class last year!). A few of them were the girls Ria had class with last year, so, of course, their mothers were there. I'm sure this impacted my percetion of everything and confusion. Well, class started REALLY soon after Ria had her shoes on and everything and I, not being a clock checker anymore and thinking that we were more on time than super early, didn't think twice about Ria going out for class.

A little way through class I realized I'd not paid for the new ballet slippers. So, I went to the office to pay. Cindy, the director, told me over $30 when I asked for the amount I needed to write on the check. I was sort of shocked, but not thinking, and wrote the check. Later, as I tried to rest a little in the waiting area, I looked at the receipt for the shoes. OH, NO! I'd paid for tap AND ballet slippers! I'd only purchased ballet slippers because her tap shoes from last year still fit.

So, I went back to speak to Cindy. She was sort of confused, understandably. There'd been SO many people she was dealing with... anyway. While I was waiting to talk to her, I learned that she was trying to switch over to a new tap shoe, PINK SPARKLIES. Well, I'd already subtracted a high amount from my ChaCha pay (for the shoes I thought was just one pair and turned out to be 2), so I decided to pay for the new style tap shoes and be able to give those to Ria when they arrived in (since they didn't have them in stock yet). As it happens, they cost only a couple dollars more than the other ones, so I'm really glad for the accidental quote of a high price. So, Ria will receive the new style tap shoes, which she is SUPER excited about because her very favorite color is pink and she LOVES sparkly things. And Mama feels happy to be able to provide something that she will love so well!!

After getting that all straightened out, I went back to the waiting room and sat down (trying to deal with Kat ALL this while). I realized, at this point, that the little girls waiting were the girls Ria went to class with last year. This was a problem because I'd asked for Ria to be scheduled in with the older group. Why didn't I notice this before? Well, mostly because I wasn't able to watch Ria in her class much at all. I was dealing with Kat's meltdown over not being able to participate IN dance class. SHE was just HEARTBROKEN. I was, of course, sad, too... which made convincing her that it was ok that she could just do dance class with me in the waiting area not terribly convincing. :(

Another trip to the office. I explained the situation to Cindy and told her I was totally willing to pay for the second class, but that it was actually the 415pm class that I'd meant to arrive for, "Blame it on the belly!" Cindy was very kind and refused the $10 for the class Ria wasn't supposed to be in. So, after Ria was finished, I talked to her teacher, Danielle. Danielle had thought we'd had to go to the 3:15pm class because of some sort of scheduling issue, which is why she hadn't said anything. I said, "Yeah, the scheduling issue is my preggie brain/memory and inability to keep track of time properly!" They were both very understanding.

So, Ria enjoyed dancing for almost TWO hours straight on Thursday. And Mama was beyond pooped from the rediculous amount of activity and exertion Kat required. (On top of the disappointment, it was her nap time during the beginning of all of this!) I walked too fast from home TO dance and could barely walk from dance TO home! How annoying. If I had a vehicle, I would probably drive to dance class every week after this (as long as I'm preggie) because it was really that difficult. But, as it is, I will walk VERY slowly to AND from dance class from now on!

Crazy day. Crazy preggie Mama!!!

Oh, and the ChaCha Universe is crazy right now, which makes time for me to write here rather than work for money. I was logged in for an hour and received only one query (and that while I was out of the room, so it timed out and I didn't even get to answer it)! ahwell... I should probably just hang out with the girls for a bit and get them to bed!

Adui, for now. ^_^