Spoiled Children! aka The Christmas Frenzy

BittyPrincess, our solstice baby, is now officially 5. Where did THOSE years go? I can't believe it. If she was our last baby, we'd have all school-aged children. WOW. On her birthday, she requested shrimp pasta and a sunshine cake. Done and done, although the sunshine cake was really just a 11" round cake with triangle cut-outs and cream cheese frosting+food coloring. For some reason the cake wound up tasting a little like cornbread; strange considering the volume of sugar I dumped into it. It got eaten (a lot) anyway. No pictures, 'cause we suck.

From Boyness' birthday through Christmas, I must have used the stand mixer almost every day. I love that thing. I was considering how much it would suck if it broke the other day, when I accidentally smeared cream cheese into one of the venty-looking things that must help cool the little enginey-thing (how technical I am today!). I might cry. Cry, and never make angel food cake, frosting, or whipped cream again.

Anyways, ON TO CHRISTMAS! While our broke-ass little immediate family was firmly nonconsumeristic (not that you have a choice when your bank account is already negative) this year, spending (Santa included) just $20 per child, our extended families MORE than made up for it. In fact, Christmas at MIL's was like an overprivileged holiday marketing frenzy. Not that the kids minded. They each got top items from their wish lists from their uncle and his GF. The only thing that saved me from feeling upstaged (honestly, not that I would have minded, I was actually kind of counting on it) was the fact that they swirled around showing off the "magic" cloaks I made them all day.

We got very few photos. So here they are, the few photos we do have:





I told you we didn't have many. None at MIL's.

On we go towards a new year! Today, a day of recuperation from the gifting frenzy at MIL's. The kids are happily exploring their new toys and games. And I am needing to clean the last remnants of Christmas baking/cooking mess left in my kitchen and figure out what to do with the rest of the baked goods we do have, since nobody here has a serious enough sweet tooth to go through THAT much cheesecake or THAT many cookies.

By the way, having kids that are old enough to clean up after themselves (mostly) is AWESOME.

Been a While, Hasn't It?

There really wasn't going to be a totally appropriate time to restart this blog. So I'll just jump in. Again. With a massive batch of updates.

I am indeed completely done with midwifery school, no lie, actually completely graduated with all the licensing exams passed and fees paid. I even updated my blog headline to read "midwife" instead of "student midwife." Done, done, done, done done. Done.

I am also pregnant. Totally, miserably, planned-ly pregnant. Yes, they can go together, we can plan to get pregnant and then it can S.U.C.K. So far, my list of things that suck in pregnancy:

• Morning sickness. Extreme morning sickness isn't a fun, dangerous sport. It sucks.
• Gallbladder issues. Talk about a poorly designed organ.
• Ligament pain. Why don't we just have rubber bands there again?
• Blood expansion. Hello anemia. Let's just pile inability to carry oxygen on top of the other reasons to feel tired during pregnancy, shall we?
• Hormones, hormones, hormones. Usually it takes, well, a lot to make me cry. Now I can't make it through a commercial break.
• Relaxin (technically I could have included this with "hormones"). Could we not just produce this as we go into labor or something? How much snap-crackle-pop is a barely-30-year-old woman supposed to have, again? And how does this translate into inability to stand all the way up for the first 10 minutes of the day?
• Food aversions. How is it nutritionally beneficial for me to turn into a vegetarian?
• Maternity clothes. Just because skinny jeans are the "in" thing doesn't mean you can't carry anything else. "Buy your prepregnancy size"...BULLSHIT.

I'm sure there are many more that I'm not thinking about right now. I can't wait for this to be over. Distract me, please, somebody, something, the internet, I don't care, just make the time pass faster.

In the meantime, the kids have grown and been very kid-like. They are probably enjoying me being home more, but are showing it in strange and highly annoying ways. Boyness turned 8. BittyPrincess is turning 5 tomorrow, but we celebrated on Saturday in our typical disorganized holiday/birthday combo...we'll have to figure that out a little better next year, since I suspect she's actually starting to care that we're rolling two parties into one.

We're broke but the kids' Christmas wishes are modest this year.

I can't work because the timing is all wrong, and I feel only marginally better than shit anyway. I'm due April 20. We'll see how far postpartum I get before I get stir-crazy and set up my website and insurance contracts. I'm guessing not long.

I fully intend to start posting again. If for no other reason, because this blog has in the past been a great picture album. We'll see what happens.