When I’m no longer applying copious amounts of white eye shadow to my brow bone because the beauty addict says it makes you look more awake, I’ll be doing some real posting. Until then, I leave you with pictures of my wonderful family and a meme (thanks Perfectly Imperfect for the tag and giving me something easy to write about).

And the meme…

Seven random facts about me:

1. I don’t own two things that are common to the American household: a television and living room furniture.
2. Alligators are my favorite animal. (I used to work at Gatorland)
3. I love love love watching people dance. The only thing I love more is watching drunken white people dance. No, scratch that, animated characters dancing…yea, definitely the best!
4. I’m technology illiterate. I can’t operate a scanner, save documents, upload and download stuff…in short all I can do is blog.
5. I wiggle my toes when I’m happy.
6. I’m still shocked at how old all of my high school classmates look on Myspace.
7. I love riding on the back of my hubbie’s motorcycle with him.

Dustin was an incredible labor coach and even laughed when I hit him in the head with a pillow and yelled “You helped put her in here, now help me pull her out!!”.  I actually yelled a ton of things, one of my personal favorites being: “Lindy this is your mother! Come out right now!”.

Thankfully I had the world’s best midwife and hospital nurse in my room for the whole thing.  They were so encouraging. When I was turned around backwards on the bed growling and delivering like a dog (can’t wait for the birth story eh?) they were discussing with each other how they wished more labors were like this.  LIke this? Really?  All right then, lets keep on growling!

I am so so so thankful to be done being pregnant and snuggling Lindy’s warm, soft little head right now. Well, not right now, but you know what I mean. I was expecting to have to suffer for another 3 weeks of being pregnant, but God gave me mercy and had her come early since she was perfectly formed

She’s a perfect baby and has these huge fat cheeks that I kiss all day.  Maddie and Christian are both pretty smitten too.  I wish I could capture the expressions on their faces when they see her. They literally glow and walk magnatized towards her.

As far as adjusting…oh my gosh it’s been amazing!  Going from two kids to three hasn’t been tough at all. Like my pediatrician says “Chaos + Chaos = Chaos”. It also really helps that I have Dustin by my side for two weeks (!), so we’re able to figure things out together and give all of the kids plenty of attention.

As soon as I get pics I”ll post

1:40 am… Woken up to frisky hubbie kissing my back. I got mad because now that I was awake I realized I had to pee. That in itself is a huge ordeal.  Wiggle to the edge of the bed, rock back and forth to swing my gigantic belly to the side, try and push with one arm up to sitting, then stand. Groggy, instant heart burn and “oh my gosh I’m not going to make it!”. I did make it however and on the way back tripped over the dog in the dark and got even more mad.

1:42 am … Clenching my throbbing pelvis from the crazy trip over the dog, lying in bed, cursing Dustin in my head for kissing me (the nerve!). my water breaks. No, actually it pops and gushes. Dustin actually heard it pop and stood over me in amazement while water shot off the bed. Oh the drama!  At that point we both looked at each other, smiled and whatever grumpy issue I had made up melted away while we realized our third child was on her way into the world!

It’s now a little over 12 hours later and we are still waiting for contractions to start.  We called our midwife and she’s cool with us hanging out here at the house for awhile. I’ve tried to get sleep but I”m way to excited. The little girl is moving around a lot and everything else seems fine. I’m sooooo happy that in 48 hours I will be done being pregnant and holding her in my arms!

More to come….

Have I mentioned how seriously uncomfortable this pregnancy has been?  I finally figured out what they meant when I was advised by strangers, doctors, and parents to “give your body a chance to recover”.  Not that we’ve had a choice in the frequency of pregnancies and even if we did, I don’t know that I’d change a thing (current discomforts considered).

Apparently I have no cartilage left in the mid line space on my pelvis. When you’re pregnant the cartilage thins so your pelvis can open during labor. Since I’ve had at the most 7 months between the past two pregnancies, the cartilage never fully built back up and the little that did started thinning again during pregnancy. So basically every time I stand up I stay hunched for about a minute while my pelvis adjusts to supporting all of my weight and I’m left to ignore the snickers of other people that assume I’m just handling pregnancy poorly.

If they think that’s funny, they should wait around awhile until I have to pick something up and drop it because my entire right arm has gone numb and won’t grip. Evidently I’ve also developed carpal tunnel syndrome and a pinched nerve from some undisclosed place in my body.   This lovely combo causes my arm to loose feeling, Nutty Professor like swelling and the inability to use fine motor skills in my right hand. Fantastic.  Dustin has taken to calling me “fat hands” and my “fat” ring to replace my wedding band is now cutting into my finger. Nice.

In brighter news, my weight seems to be under control and the discomfort from the pregnancy is making any fears about jumping to three kids dissolve in my excitement to have this kid out of me:).  I still really love being pregnant, but I’m praying I’ll have a longer period of time before the next one. I’m looking into IUD’s but Dustin and I aren’t on the same page about birth control and I’m too emotional right now to talk about it rationally.

Hope you’re having a great three day weekend!

I feel so validated by all of you that left comments about the chicken “event”. I thought I was some weird squeamish girly girl (refer to the spoiled brat in Lost Season 1) when comparing the way I handled the rooster killing to manchops laid back manner.

He ended up discovering that the best way to kill a rooster is to hold it upside down to stop the squirming and then snap the neck. I guess that keeps the muscles from tensing up and makes it easier to de-feather. The whole process took about 2 hours since Dustin had to do research. He said the killing part was fast and easy, but the process of cleaning it took a while.

We now have a headless, featherless, bloodless, gut free rooster in our fridge. Apparently roosters are tough meat so you have to let it loosen up in the fridge for a couple of days. In the meantime, Dustin was kind enough to wrap the rooster in a towel so I don’t have to look at it. Dustin told me rooster is on the menu tonight, but since the rooster is pretty small, there will only be enough for him (oh darn ).

I think the whole process has been kinda cool. We are really living a self sustaining life…well at least for one of Dustin’s meals we are . It’s been satisfying to raise our own animals and then use them for a meal. This process has really given me an appreciation for where my food comes from. Now when I thank God at dinner for providing our meal, I also ask that He blesses the farmers that raise and cultivate our vegetables and meat.

And now to take Urban hillbilly to a whole new level. Did you know that there is such a thing as Mini Cows? Oh yes, and they produce two gallons of milk a day! They are hecka cute and a little larger than a large dog. You have no idea how bad I want one of these! We’re not going to get one though because we are already pushing it by having chickens in our suburbia backyard. Plus, I would totally feel like a freak having playdates at my house and hearing “Mommy look! That chicken is riding on the cows back” as a kid gazes out my sliding glass doors to the patio.

But isn’t it so cute? That picture is of it full grown.

I wonder what the future holds for me. If I start wearing overalls and going out front in my bare feet with a baby on my hip please slap me…oh wait, I do that already minus the overalls.

Nope. Just same old, after work Dustin. I was practically buzzing with anticipation of the night’s events. “How are you going to do it? No wait, don’t tell me. How do you know how to do this? Are you nervous? What if things go wrong? What if it doesn’t die on the first try and is limping around the yard pitifully in front of his friends?”

Dustin calmly told me he’d take care of it and doesn’t get what the big deal is. I guess that’s one of the differences between men and women. Men were made with the instinct to hunt, women with the instinct to nurture. Which makes me wonder what all of the men with this basic instinct are doing with it in urban civilization. Are they really satisfied going to their cubicle, turning in projects and then coming home for honey-do’s and family time? Does having a physical job make a man feel more manly? Dunno. What do you think?

Back to the story…. I didn’t go outside during the actual “event”. Instead, I stayed inside with the kids giving my sister-in-law a play-by-play via phone of what was going down. “No, he hasn’t done it yet… I have no idea what he’s going to use. WAIT…he’s going into the garage….I wonder what he’s going to come out with….He came in with….nothing! Is he actually going to use his bare hands?….Now he’s leaving the house with a… Target bag? No! Not Target! He could at least use a Wal-Mart bag. Not my beloved Target…..what’s he going to do with a grocery bag anyways? I’ll call you back.”

I did get brave enough to sneak out 15 minutes later to find him sitting on the ground “dressing” the chicken. (Why they call it “dressing” when you’re obviously forcing it to become a step beyond naked, I’ll never know.) He was calm, self assured and again, acted like it was no big deal. Boys are so different.

What’s in your google search bar? Mine…..”how to eviscerate a chicken”

At 5:30 this morning I was startled awake by a rooster crowing. Our rooster crowing!

Our hunches were right. One of our chickens has turned out to be a rooster after all. Thank goodness it’s the ugly one. I’ve tried so hard to not get attached to the chickens, but in the same way I don’t draw the personal - professional line very well with patients, I apparently don’t draw the personal - strictly business line with my dinner either.

Dustin left for work this morning with a mischievous gleam in his eye. I have no idea what’s going to go down tonight, but I know for sure I want nothing to do with it. He promised that if we ended up with roosters that he’d kill them and replace them with hens, since we’re raising them for eggs and not chicks. AGH! I may become a vegetarian after tonight. (Upside to that, they’re usually really skinny right?)

I wonder what his strategy for extermination is anyways. We don’t own a gun. We don’t own one of those big square knifey things. The only thing we have as far as weapons go is a spear that his sister brought back as a souvenir from Africa. A souvenir!

Updates to come…….

Um, no.  I realized last week that mom’s don’t get vacations. At least not while their kids are this little. I don’t mean that as a complaint but the option of sleeping in, taking numerous naps, lounging around and totally forsaking schedules just can’t happen right now in my life.

Dustin spent the first three days of vacation asleep. Literally.  He would wake up for food and that was about it.  Day four of sleeping man-beauty resulted in a very bitter and pissy Mary. I was tired of being the one to get up from every nap to take care of the kids. I was tired of working harder on vacation than I do at home.  I was … just tired.  We got into a fight and both pouted for two days. Once that was over, I realized that vacation really only means a change of scenery. With that understanding I was able to relax and enjoy the rest of the time.

We did get a chance to take advantage of his parents offer to watch the kids and snuck away to a cabin in Utah for an afternoon and a night. Now that was vacation!  Even though Dustin slept the whole time there too, I had the porch and outdoors to relax in and read.  I was amazed that I found myself in a sweater on the deck in the middle of August!  It was 62 degrees at 7pm! Awesome!

The best part of the past week was my mother in law.  Over the past year we have really grown close.  When Dustin and I had our “time out” last summer I was forced to become super vulnerable with her (since I had left with the kids for her house).  I feel like we bonded that summer and became not only adopted family but true friends.

This past week I got to hang out with her in her amazing garden and just absorb her infinite wisdom about all things flowery and shrub like.  When she had to go to work at the Garden center she owns and runs, the kids and I would walk down to see her and help water the plants just so we could get more grandma time in.  I really am so thankful to have such an amazing mother in law and I’m so glad that the normal in law issues aren’t issues for us at all. Or maybe they are, but she’s just so amazing she doesn’t let it show

The End.

Just kidding ;)  My geek hubbie finally transfered all of our family pics over onto my computer from some silver computer thingy that he had to store the pics on for an undisclosed amount of time for some reason I either got bored trying to understand or didn’t care. Either way, they’re back!  And not only are they back, but Dustin set up a slideshow screen saver of ALL OF THEM.  I think that’s so thoughtful, he knows how much I love pictures, and all the memories they conjure up.  Thank you hubbie….BUT….there are some, um, private pictures, and I don’t know which file they are in so I can’t take them out of the slide show…yet.  So when the random freecycler comes over to pick up my junk their treasures, it’s a little awkward to see a picture of yourself stripped down to the skivvies breastfeeding your first born.

In other news, we’re going on vacation tomorrow!!!  I really, REALLY wanted to make it back home to Florida this year for my cousin’s wedding (most of my family has never met Dustin or my kids!) but finances have made that impossible. So we’re driving the 5 hours to Page and staying with Dustin’s parents for about a week. I love Page and I’m so stoked to get out of town and just hang out by the lake.  Being by water does something for my soul, and for a Floridian transplanted to the desert, I’m in some serious need of that “something”.