On Battling Critters, Contractions, and a Curious Child...

Yes, Megan... I am still (barely) alive. I have not fallen off the face of the earth, or been swept up by an errant Kansas tornado. I am just... exhausted! My month in a not so small nutshell...

1. I begged my friend, Jana, to chop off all my hair. I present to you my new "angled, stacked bob", which has failed to look like the above picture since Jana cut it...
2. Jason has been away for the past few weeks, and I have finally come to the conclusion that the house will never clean itself...
3. I have been sweating in the sweltering heat of Texas growing the "Most Expensive, Labor Intensive Critter Feeder in the Whole Wide World". If anyone can figure out what is eating my tomatoes, I would be much obliged. So far the count goes: CRITTERS- 10 tomatoes. KAREN: 1 small, measly tomato.

I am TOTALLY blaming Megan and my inl-aws (Yes Steve and Tracy, that's you!) for giving me the mistaken belief that tomatoes were easy to grow. NOT SO! I am out there almost daily- watering, using Hot Pepper Wax, Insecticidal Soap, Compost Tea, putting up a bird net, hanging shiny CDs, putting in shiny pinwheels, weeding, pruning... All. For. One. Tomato. (And one trip to the hospital... but I am getting ahead of myself.) So far, nothing has worked. I am going out tonight to put up another barrier. (And I'm going to the Farmer's Market tomorrow to buy some to eat!)
4. Faith has decided that, with Daddy gone, now would be a great time to get curious about using the potty. So far, this has consisted of screaming for me to get her pants down, running to the potty, sitting on it forever, then getting up and running away while she does her business. ON THE FLOOR. I have invested in many Clorox cleaning products to protect my "germaphobe" sanity.

"Yes Mama, squash 'sounds' good!"

5. After another sweltering day in the garden Wednesday, followed by trying to cool off at the pool, Baby Peanut decides she's had enough. I start getting contractions at 5 pm and decide to start guzzling water. Several liters later, I wake up at midnight to more contractions. I anxiously wait to see if they will get to the dreaded "4 contractions/hour". This happens at 2:30 am. At only 26 weeks pregnant, this is not good! Trying (unsuccessfully) not to panic, I get up to pack Faith an overnight bag. Deciding the kitchen is too embarrassingly messy to have a neighbor see, I decide to clean that really quickly too! Then, I get dressed. The contractions are now further apart, so I decide to lie down and drink even more water. At 8:30 a.m., I wake up to more contractions, so I get the neighbor to come over and watch Faith so I can drive to the hospital.

At the hospital, many tests and 2 hours of monitoring later, (by the way, by the time the doctors and nurse practitioner see me, my contractions are completely gone!) it is decided that I am in no danger of delivering and am sent home. I refuse the Percocets and Phenergen prescription. (Seriously, I can't get doped up and take care of Faith!)

On a weirdly funny note, I got a kick out of the nurse practitioner who first saw me. She looked like Albert Einstein (hair-wise) and Freida combined. She also seemed REALLY scatter-brained, and I felt like I had to ask pointed questions to get her to look in the right direction, medically speaking. I asked her things like, "Did my ultrasound clinical picture change much since last week? Are you going to get a doctor to do a cervical length? Did you know I delivered twins at 21 weeks gestation?" The last question prompted her to reply, "And how old are your twins now?"!!! If I wasn't so panicked, I would have laughed because the color drained from the other nurse in the room, who was getting equipment ready. One doctor begged me to work on Labor and Delivery and another doctor told me to stay home and rest.

Life for me is never boring!