6 weeks and counting...

Sparkling cider and non-noisy blowout thingys for the New Year!

Holy canoli, it's been over a month since I last shared personal information about myself and my family via the web (aka: blogging)! So you wonder, what's been cooking? This baby girl, that's what. I'm about 6 weeks out from my official due date (Feb. 18), and everything that other ladies who have 2+ children told me is coming true! Facts like:

-"Those" muscles DO get weaker after delivering your first child making them more easily sore/tired the 2nd time around (who was I to think I would be the exception to the rule);

-You DO get more worn out more easily when pregnant with #2 because you're chasing around another little one (ok, I don't really do a lot of chasing Pascal, but caring for him does take more energy out of me). Again, I thought I might escape the majority and somehow be a weirdly energetic mother in her third trimester to an almost 2 year old boy - nope, I'm in with the average crowd.

Thor listened to me fuss about these things a few nights ago and gently reminded me that in my last 2 months of pregnancy with Pascal, I was in the rare position of not working 40 hours/week (we had just moved back to Michigan, and I wasn't planning to return to work after Pascal was born). Yup, those might have been the most unusual 2 months of my young life: not working, not in school for anything, not responsible for much of anything except for caring for myself, baby inside (they require so little at that point:), Thor (a grown man capable of doing everything for himself if need be), a little domicile, and exercising 5 mornings a week at the Curves just a few minutes walk away from home. I put my feet up a lot during those months. There were downsides of course: new to an area, slowly building friendships/social circles, and the freezing cold of Michigan I'd escaped for 5 years down in North Carolina. But, for 2 glorious months, I slowed way down and really rested. I experienced no real stress of any kind except maybe when I thought about the labor process, but I knew I was never, ever, again, going to have a time such as that.

So, if I had my way and could create a national policy without all the rigmarole of passing a bill through the House and then the Senate where it would get all torn apart and possibly sent back to the House and then getting it to the President where he could possibly veto it before signing it (see I did pay attention in my political science classes), it would be to give all of those first time moms the option of having the last couple of months in their pregnancy to leave their jobs and soak in the once in a life time chance of having few responsibilities and lots of rest (this of course already applies to pregnant moms who are ordered on bed rest, God bless them) before they have to take on one of the biggest responsibilities of their lives: caring for and raising children.

And that would be my response to the Miss America question: "How would you change the world?"

In other news, Pascal turns 2 (T-W-O, folks!) next week. What does he want for his birthday? World peace and a baby sister (well, really I want the first thing and he doesn't really get an option with the second). And a cupcake, which he will get:)

Happy New Year to you all/y'all!