I couldn't have said it ANY better

I read this article today on The Pioneer Woman's homeschooling blog. The best homeschool blog post ever.

I love homeschooling. I love the freedom, the flexibility, the knowledge that *I* am teaching my child. I love how I can see what Kaelyn is learning. I love the relationship that Kaelyn is building not only with me, but especially with Cooper. I love the homeschool community and the relationships we ALL are finding.

But, man oh man, is the month of October hard! Reality stinks.

All Aboard!

My kids have been darn cute today. And they've been playing SO well together! It's fun to watch them be creative and make things. Today they made a train.

(According to Kaelyn) They took the train to Oregon and continued down the Oregon Trail. Then they went to Seattle. :)

They ate lunch on the train and then decided that they wanted to be The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything (from VeggieTales) and built themselves a pirate ship. Here is "Captain Larry" trying to find his way around the newly created pirate ship. I overheard them say that they were "sailing the seven seas".

These are some fun times when they actually want to play together and don't annoy each other ALL of the time (just 99% of the time). Although their creativity was often interrupted by arguing and irritation, they had a good time. And made a huge mess in the meantime. What fun would it be without a good mess!

On a much lighter note

I have a feeling this child is going to have serious psychological issues when he grows up if his sister keeps dressing him up like this.....

And - FYI - she was dressing him up like LarryBoy from VeggieTales. LOL

I promise that I really am trying not to complain

I know that I've waited a long time to be pregnant. And I shouldn't complain at all about everything that I'm experiencing with this pregnancy. But, dang it, this is my blog - so I'm going to complain for a minute. Don't think that the following rant has in any way, shape or form affected my gratefulness or my amazement at the miracle of this pregnancy.....

With that said, here it goes. There are those people out there who say "Pregnancy was the best time of my life", "All I felt was good during pregnancy" and "Pregnancy was when I have felt the best as a woman". Well, you will never find me saying any of those things. At least not about the first 16 weeks of this pregnancy. When people ask me how I'm feeling, my standard answer is "I'm feel pretty good". But here's what I really want to answer - "I feel bloated, gassy, huge, tired and awkward." I don't feel at all like myself. I feel like I'm HUGE and that my stomach shouldn't be sticking out NEARLY as far as it is at this moment. Thankfully, I've only gained 2lbs (well, I lost 6 in the first 12 weeks and I've only gained 2 of those pounds back), but I feel like I've gained 20. All I want to do is sleep. I'm SO tired - ALL. THE. TIME. Shouldn't I be at least *starting* to feel a little more energy at this point? I feel like I have this huge gas bubble in my belly that is making me horribly bloated. But guess what - it's not gas or bloating, its a BABY. I can't sleep at night, I can't keep my house clean and I can't go anywhere that I'm gone for a long period of time because I can't even function when I get home. I still feel sick at nights (more heartburn now than nausea) but it makes me STILL not want to make dinner. I can't get up the energy to take two children to the grocery store because just the thought of it makes me want to take a nap. Which means that we have absolutely no food in the house. I'm serious - you would be shocked if you came and looked in my fridge right now. Basically, nothing feels "right". I feel totally off kilter and like I'm living outside of my body right now. I think I'm not meant to be pregnant. And I definately don't feel like this is the most fabulous time of my life. Good news - I'm only doing this ONCE.

So, now that I sound like a horrible, horrible person who is so ungrateful for this chance to be pregnant, I'll stop. I AM very thankful, and in the end I know that I will be very, very happy to have the experience. And I know I'll enjoy the outcome. :) I'm just pretty sure I don't really want to do this again.

I've committed myself

No, not to a mental institution (although some days I think I should do that too!).

Today I packed up all the "fat" clothes from before and during my 40lb weight loss journey and I'm hauling them off to the Goodwill. Now, my first thought was "maybe I should keep some of these so that I have some stuff to wear after this pregnancy". But then I realized - that is TOTALLY enabling myself. And I need to stop that! So, today I committed myself to not gaining so much weight during this pregnancy that I need those fat clothes afterwards. Not that I'm going to believe that I'll fit into my skinny clothes right away (don't worry, I'm not THAT dumb) but I'm going to make sure that only having my maternity clothes to wear afterwards and maybe a couple things that I find later at the Goodwill to fill in some gaps becomes a motivator for losing the weight when I'm done with this pregnancy.

So, you've heard it here first. I'm committing myself to a healthy pregnancy, a small (although healthy) amount of weight gain during it, and a motivation for getting back into shape afterwards.

It's not going to be easy - but those fat clothes won't be sitting around waiting for me. Hopefully that will make it easiER.