The Ticking Time Bomb

Well, inevitably at some point in every pregnancy there comes a time where I make the transition from a large pregnant female to a ticking time bomb. Maybe if I didn't look like an elephant pregnant with twins I'd feel a little better about it but, at this stage, there is no consolation and no comfort to be found in gestating anymore. The time has come. But, to make matters even worse, my body is in great denial over that fact and is refusing to cooperate in even the slightest way. Gone are the contractions, gone are any and all symptoms that anything imminent might be even somewhat near. I truly could be pregnant until the middle of July at this rate. And vain as it is, I might feel better about it if I looked like I did with the other 4 single pregnancies. But, no, instead I look exactly like I did and weigh exactly what I did full term with Garrison and Grant. There is absolutely no doubting the fact there is indeed only 1 in there so I am left with the realization that I am huge and extraordinarily pregnant with just 1 massive kid. I'm not sure if it's my greatest fear or greatest hope that this baby will come out weighing a whopping 15 pds just to justify my size at this point. If this baby only weighs 6 pds I will have reason to be distraught. I hesitate even to post pics of the shower due to my tent like status. And, yes, vain as it is I cried over it all Sunday morning. The dress I ordered to attend the shower in on Sat was indeed a beautiful piece of clothing......on a woman with about 1/2 the baby I have in there. So, refusing to wear it to church on Sunday I went in jeans and a nice huge oversized maternity shirt that helped hide my whale like features. I'm already sick of the "You're still here????" comments and I'm way overly sensitive to the "You're huge!!!!" comments. Yes, there is no doubt (and I suppose people only assume there might be and feel need to confirm to my doubting mind????) as to how huge I am. I dreaded the mere thought of facing anyone at church and hearing all of the comments. So much so that I avoided Sunday school and ended up crying it out to Brad. So, there in our bathroom with him sitting on the toilet lid and me standing in front of the mirror in all of my vanity he gave me the heart to heart talk that there is indeed no one else in this world that he would ever rather have and that I am indeed the most beautiful thing in the world to him, as I tried sucking it up and putting on my mascara to get around the tears. It didn't work and I cried it all off anyway. So, being somewhat comforted, though there's not much to be had at this point, he headed off to town to grocery shop so I didn't have to get out and face the world and I headed to church humbly in my jeans with all of the children in tow. If it had been up to me I would've gone back to bed and hidden under the sheets until I go into labor but we both knew the only right thing to do would be to go to church and make my appearance in appreciation of what they all have done for us, how generous they all have been and the shower which they gave. So, I forged on and endured and thankfully not too many of the comments came rolling in. I don't think I've ever been so thankful to not hear people open their mouths. I think at this point everyone is feeling some measure of pity for me, which is still far better than having to endure the "Dang!!! How big are you gonna get????!!!!!" comments. So, with much trepidation I will post pics of the shower. I'll also post pics of full term with Garrison and Grant and then full term with Garrett so the drastic differences between the 3 can be memorialized through these great pages bound for history.




So, here we are at 39 wks with twins



And here we are at 39 wks with Garrett






And, here we are at 39 wks with this baby - although Garrett's fuzzy little white blond head at the bottom of the picture is really cute



And trying to convince me there's 2 in there at this point is futile and only worsens the situation. There is indeed only 1 and I'm just really really big. 2 sonograms and a stomach that is hard on one side with baby and soft on the other with empty space is more than enough to convince me, despite the deceiving size.










The shower on the other hand was so much fun. Being the 4th of July weekend a ton of people went absent but had sent or dropped off presents in advance. So, there was just a small group of girls with a ton of presents to open. So, that part of it was a blast. And Evye and Aubrey looked like little tan angels all clad in white that were ready to set flight at any moment. They were so pretty and were so excited. After telling Grayson there was no way in the world he could go, seeing as how it's a baby shower attended only by women, I finally gave in to his pleas. He had a pretty convincing argument when he begged saying that it's his brother too. So, off he went to attend the shower with us and be completely surrounded by women. Of course, being Grayson it didn't phase him in the least. More pictures of the shower and children can be found on Abby's blog.

Pretty Aubrey. I regret not getting any of just Evye and Aubrey together.











But, we were incredibly blessed with some much needed new boy clothes and many many packages of diapers. Tomorrow Evye's and my big project of the day is to go through it all and wash, fold and hang up everything and organize it all into his two waiting vacant drawers. She can hardly wait. You'd think she's the one having the baby. It'll be so much fun watching her be pregnant with her 1st one in years to come. But, the shower was a huge success despite the number of missing people and we were entirely blessed by the generosity of everyone in the town. Gifts continued to pour in even yesterday and today by people who weren't able to come.


So, I can truly say everything is now completely ready......including the infant carseat complete with a babydoll belted inside to keep curious, way-too-big toddlers out of it. So, now we wait and wait..........and then wait some more.


On the funnier side of life, we all awoke on baby shower morning to start getting ready. I put off painting Aubrey's nails until the morning of it and both girls wanted "makeovers" in order to ready themselves for the occasion. So, with them to get ready and "makeover" and me to get ready I started the day on time.....only to discover a mere 1/2 hr into it Grayson running through the backdoor to say the goat gate was open and there were no hollering baby goats. There were, in fact, no goats at all. I looked in Brad's direction knowing just what exactly his response would be and, thankfully and to his credit, he remained quiet....though I knew he seethed inside. He continued on unpanicked in his morning routine and I finally asked if he was going to go deal with it or if he wanted me to. He said he would. So, I waited and waited and he continued on quite calm and slow through his endeavors. Finally, impatient and full of worry I took off in the Suburban in an effort to search the town streets. Nothing. Feeling like I had done as much as I could and with the feelings of being completely overwhelmed by the infinite amount of directions they could've headed off in I told Grayson I had to head back home and Brad would have to do the rest.....but that they were most likely long gone. Grayson continued on in his search riding his bike as fast and as furiously as he could all over the local area. Within a few minutes of me being home he returned breathless saying he'd found all 5 in their little herd grazing across the highway. So, by this time with Brad ready to go, I hurriedly stuck Garrett in his crib to quarantine him and left Evye with instructions to watch Garrison and Grant carefully and not let them outside. And off Brad and I went with Grayson in tow to do the most redneck thing I think I have ever done in my entire life. We reached the goats and the babies came to us as soon as they saw the bottles. Hollering and crying obnoxiously loud they came running. Easily enough they were lifted into the bed of the truck and Grayson gave them their morning bottles. I tried approaching the other 3 bigger goats but they're much more aloof and hard to touch, let alone capture. I finally got near enough to them to convince them to eat what we'd brought them but they continued to completely evade any sort of capture. Finally Brad got out and told me to drive while he had a try. As this whole time we're working our way down the streets farther from home trying to catch them in between bites of oats. By this time I'm hot and sweaty and it's humid and the shower is quickly closing in with only 2 hrs to get both girls and me, more so now than ever, completely dressed and ready. So, I drive and round them up with the truck while Brad and Grayson walk alongside and behind them doing it the old redneck way. Now knowing at this point it's completely unrealistic to think we might even have a chance at catching them and loading them into the bed of the truck we seem to have come to a silent mutual understanding that we must do it this way all the way home. So, feeling a bit like Heidi and the old hermit grandfather we slowly make our way through the streets of town herding them back home. The only thing we really lacked to round out the look was the old shepherd's cane. As one would start to stray I'd steer the truck in the general direction and it'd run back to the little herd. It felt a little ridiculous to be waving to the neighbors driving at speeds that didn't even register on the speedometer as we crawled along. By the end of it, as we finally neared home, an older man trying to pass our slow moving truck realized what we were doing and he too became involved in our herding efforts. With the 2 trucks and Brad and Grayson we succeeded in getting them down the driveway. Once they saw the familiar pasture (by now I think they might all be familiar) they ran in and the gate was closed behind them. I pulled up to the gate and the 2 babies were then unloaded from the bed of the truck and were added to the rest of the herd. All I could think of at that moment was how joyously glad I was that we don't have a herd of 50 yet. While Brad and Grayson finished messing with them I headed inside to hurriedly do what I could before it was time to go. Sadly, Aubrey never did get her nails painted and there was no time for me to even take a shower, not to mention do anything elaborate with my hair. So it was that I attended my own baby shower like a true redneck farmer's wife with a ton of deodorant on, 1/2 a bottle of tangerine body spray and my hair swept up into a clip on my head that held it all in place and hopefully disguised the fact that it didn't get washed............despite the fact it would've looked much much better down, minimizing the whole massive baby issue. But, I had a very decent...and quite comical....excuse for being 10 minutes late to the shower. When I told them we'd had to round up our goats 3 of the older ladies pitched in and said "Oh, we saw you walking them home this morning." So, that made a nice topic of conversation for awhile. Later in the afternoon after everything quieted down and all the company had left I thought about how funny and strange it is how life changes in so many ways. Years ago at my 1st baby shower we sat around talking about who all we'd seen recently, what all of the latest church staff info was and hugging those that we hadn't seen in a long while. Now here I sat at a shower for our 7th baby discussing the redneck ways of herding goats, who saw a rattlesnake most recently, who stepped on one, whose horses had competed very well, whose cows had beefed up beyond imagination and on and on in went. It's funny how life changes so much.



And then last Wed we dealt with our first real finger smashing event. I suppose it happens at some point in every family but I didn't really expect it to look so awful that it turned my stomach to deal with it. But, Evye was out feeding Fletch and somehow the latch and her finger met up in a very unmerciful way. She stayed out in the pasture wailing it out to the donkey, sure of the fact that he was indeed consoling her as he followed her around trying to nudge her and snort in her hair in her moment of need. She finally made her way into the house gently crying it out. I didn't expect it to be much since her cries were not desperate, but upon looking at it I sent her to Brad and knew there was no way I could stomach dealing with it. Sure enough by the weekend it looked like this. It's now fairly apparent she will lose her nail in the deal. Brad kept a close eye on it and since he was home for a 96 he dealt with the worst of it. No infection ever set in but by the end of it it had become a purply black color and was about 3 x's the size of her other thumb. She stayed on Tylenol for 3 days before it ever stopped hurting. It's finally starting to resemble a normal size again, though it still looks far from anything normal. Of course, the pictures never do it justice.





















And then the children found the huge globe (the one that rivals the size of my pregnant stomach right now) and decided to blow it up about a week ago. Somehow it managed to escape the carport and we received a call from the next door neighbor saying he'd just gotten his mail and there was a huge globe blowing downtown. He figured it was our's. There's another great example of small town life for you. I sent Grayson out after it and this was him bringing it home and then wrestling with it some more. Kind of funny.









And here's sweet, ever growing Garrett. He's losing his baby look and starting to look like a real toddler. Brad and I both agreed that we can tell what he's going to look like as a man from this picture. He's 15 months old today and just as cute as ever.