Everythings fine, it was just a little blood.

I have had three picture perfect pregnancies. Three times in a row where I got pregnant, grew a baby, baby came out 9 months later, everything was fine. Three times where I went in for one ultrasound at 18-20 weeks to check the gender and that was it.* But I guess if you get that lucky three times in a row, you're bound to be given a wild card. Not that this baby has been really all that bad, but for me, it's been a weird pregnancy. Yesterday Doug and I went to the Salt Lake temple for his cousin Jamie's endowment. Everything was fine (except it took a long time for me to get food, which sucked, but I survived) and on the car ride home I was completely engrossed in a phone call from my sister where she told me she was getting engaged (HOORAY LIZZY!). So I didn't notice that I had started to bleed again. But when I stood up to get out of the car, it sort of became very apparent. I took it rather calmly. I walked up stairs, got cleaned up, then called Doug in to break the news. Then I kissed the girls goodnight and walked back down stairs to call my mom, who was asleep, and then my mother-in-law, who told me to call the on call doctor, which I should have done in the first place (duh. So maybe I wasn't taking it as well as I thought). Anyway, I called him and he said that as long as it wasn't a heavy flow and I didn't have severe cramps I could wait until the morning and call my doctor for an ultrasound. Doug then gave me a blessing, and we went to bed. Things had calmed down in the bleeding area by morning, it was mostly that one gush and that was it. The cramping had me worried though because I thought I was having some mild cramps when I went to bed, so I stayed awake much longer than I wanted waiting to see if they got worse. Turns out it was just gas, which was to be expected because every time I eat out I get gas because I don't have a gall bladder. TMI? Eh. Anyway, the morning came and I got in to see the ultrasound tech right away, and she checked out everything lickety split. Seriously, it was the fastest ultrasound I'd ever seen. But I guess if she was squeezing me in, she had a right to go quickly. Also, there was nothing wrong with me or the baby, so no reason to linger. She told me my placenta had probably bleed as a result of it attaching to the uterus wall, or it got irritated because it was located close to the cervix at the moment, or I just happened to bleed randomly last night but everything was fine now as long as the bleeding was stopping, which it was. Then she got some pictures of the baby for me. It was so sweet to see the little trouble maker. I saw the heart beat and the baby thrashing around in there (Doug says he saw a fist pump move going on) and I got a sweet little picture. It was so nice to see tangible evidence that I was actually pregnant with a human child and not getting over an elongated flu with associated weight gain (don't judge my paranoia). This makes it a grand total of four ultrasounds in 13.5 weeks of pregnancy. And I have another one with my neighbor the ultrasound technician next week, mostly because she really wanted to and I said hey, why not, and then the one where we check for the gender. So that will make six total that I know about, but who knows? We could go for more. The nurse also told me to take it easy this weekend, which translated for me as "You are hereby ordered to take more naps and do less chores." Good thing Doug is off tomorrow and my in-laws get here on Sunday. :) Anywho, here's the picture from ultrasound #4.




*Michael also had a brief ultrasound at 8 weeks to check for the heartbeat, but I guess that's standard now where it wasn't with the girls.

The Jacobson Kids and the Messy Room

Ever read the book The Berenstein Bears and the Messy Room? That book kind of described my life for the past good while. I sympathized with Momma Bear so much. I just wanted to take a box and start throwing toys into it for the trash man, and threatened to do so on more than one occasion. The girls would fight over who was cleaning, who wasn't, who was supposed to be picking up what, and how it was "Tooooooo big a mmmeeesssss!" every night. So yesterday, because the room was messy and because we had not had a chance to clean it up the night before due to being out late for FHE, I told the girls at 10:15 am that they needed to clean their room. At 10:45 I said as soon as they were done they could have lunch. At 11:00 I said if they could get done quickly they could have chocolate milk with their lunch. At 11:15, I called Doug and told him my plan. 4 toys, 4 stuffed animals, 4 dress ups, 4 books, and that was it! Everything else was going into storage until further notice. I just couldn't handle the screaming, both on their part and on mine. I couldn't handle the stress, the contention that lasted well into the night that made bedtime miserable! The girls were missing story time more and more often, which is something that I really enjoy with my kids, and it was getting cancelled too often because bedroom cleanup took 30-45 minutes, and only with parental supervision (please read as breaking up fights, over coming tantrums, or wading through both to make the work get done). No bueno. So I hatched a plan to limit the mess, thereby limiting the whining and clean up. I mean a room can only get so messy with a few toys in it right? And it wasn't like the mess being made was from toys being played with. Usually things got dumped out to find other things, or collections of odds and ends would end up all over the house, only to be dragged back upstairs by me to not the put away by my kids. Anyway, back to "the plan." I presented it to Doug....well, I told him what I was going to do and it would be great if he would get on board but it was happening anyway. I might have told him "the plan" in the heat of the moment, aka right after failed room cleaning #110000001. Anyway, the point is that he agreed with me, but wanted to take the sting out of the situation for the girls. I wanted to accomplish the plan in stealth, where it was done while Evelynn was a school and then break the news to the girls. Looking back that was probably a little vindictive of me, so it was lucky that it didn't go down that way. Doug suggested a family meeting. I thought this would lead to more tears and screaming, but he insisted, so I went along. He bought the book The Messy Room and started our meeting reading that to the girls. Then he had them talk about cleaning their room, what was hard about it, what they didn't like about it, etc. Then he had him and I talk about how it makes US feel when the girls don't clean their room. They took it rather well. Then he presented "the plan." We were going to clean out and throw away a lot of the stuff that had accumulated in the room over time, and get rid of toys we don't use etc. After this process, the girls would be allowed to choose a few of each category of toys, then the rest would be put in a box and put in the basement for a while, where we could trade toys every few months. They took this news much much better than I expected. In the end, we kept all the books except the ones which were broken/missing pages, three toys/stuffed animals for their beds to sleep with, three dress ups each, and two toy sets each (like their magnetic dress up dolls) and then one set of toys they chose together (they chose dishes and food for their kitchen). I couldn't believe how much stuff we threw out though! I mean, we've only lived in this house for a year, but there were so many little junk toys to get rid of, like 2/3 of a puzzle, broken dolls, McDonald's toys etc and also lots, and lots, and lots of paper! This I blame on my crafty daughter Evelynn, but we also discovered with the paper like 20 crayons, so that was nice. The room is much more bare, but I think, hope, pray, that this is a good change. We told the girls they were not allowed to complain of a "big mess" anymore since we ensured that this could not be possible. Even with all the toys and dress ups on the floor, it would all fit in two milk crates (which is what we use to store toys in the closet). Bottom line of the story is that I am grateful for my husband who recognized the strain this problem was placing on me, and so didn't shoot down my master plan as too harsh, but instead tempered it to make it more palatable to the kids. It's so nice to have someone work side by side with you in raising kids. Today the kids played all morning with their toys. I think it helped a lot to have the toys all put back together so they could find all the pieces. I'll update later how the experiment is going, but for now, here's to simplifying our lives!

Remember that one time?

Remember that one time I ran a half marathon and it was awful because of the heat and the wind the thirst and the wind and the fact that I felt so fatigued and the wind etc etc? Yeah, me too. Remember how I mentioned that I started my period the day after the race and chalked up the fatigue and other symptoms to that? Yeah, me too. Remember how I then proceeded to bleed (only lightly, but bleed none the less) for 20 straight days? Yeah.... I might not have mentioned that. Well I got an ultrasound, thinking that I either had a tumor or some other disease/malady, and found out it was just a parasite. One that lasts about 40 weeks. And it was already 5 1/2 weeks along. Go figure. :) The ultrasound guy was actually pretty funny. I had to drink 36 oz of water 1 hour before getting the ultrasound done, so when he started with the procedure he's like "I bet you have to pee, so I'm sorry. Oh, and did you know you were pregnant?" I was like, "No.... am I?" So I decided to buy this shirt for Michael and send out a picture to my family after I had another ultra sound a while later to confirm the heart beat. It was confirmed, and my nausea set it, confirming it further, and then my body said "Oh, this is your fourth parasite! Let's just relax." Please interpret this as me not being able to fit into my pants at 6 weeks and 3 days along. Seriously. One day I could, the next day I could not. So not fair. Anyway, we are super excited, and a little surprised (because although it was a "planned" pregnancy, it almost jumped the gun on us. The plan wasn't supposed to go into effect until AFTER my race, but apparently this baby couldn't wait another 4 weeks) to announce the future arrival of Jacobson baby #4 around November 26th!

I know you think I'm perfect....

 ....but I'm not. I'm pretty spectacular, don't get me wrong, but I'm far from perfect. I read on someone's blog (sorry random person who I can't remember) that it was a pity sometimes to portray yourself as totally in control, a neat freak, uniquely crafty all the time, and an all around perfect mom, because it can makes others feel inadequate, and lets face it, we all go to other people's blogs (because it's almost like visiting with them in real life, right?) and see only the cute stuff and think that is all there is to a person. Well, I'm here to burst your bubble. My life this week has been kind of awful. I have a terrible head cold, cough, sore throat combo which is making it really hard for me to get a good night's sleep/any sleep at all, plus all three of my kids have bad coughs which wake them up in the night and cause general grouchiness around the home. I was looking at my house today after I barely managed to get dinner on the table and into my kids bellies sans Doug (he's at an elder's quorum service activity, so he's excused) and I just though, this looks terrible. I'm going to take a picture. Here it is folks. My life. I hope I didn't make anyone faint or rethink their friendship with me. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. :)

 Kitchen which includes some of yesterday's dinner dishes, and all of today's dishes. The white stuff on the floor is Michael's hamburger bun he took before dinner and then ate/crumbled as he walked around the whole house.

 The counter, which is the general collector of stuff  throughout the day. Please notice today's mail, Evelynn's homework, breakfast, lunch, and dinner dishes/stuff, and trash. Then there is the kitchen table, which at that moment only contained dinner stuff because all the breakfast and lunch stuff had been relocated elsewhere.

And finally the living room. This one isn't too bad, but notice the kids watching a movie after dinner. It was either that or take them to the park, but when Michael decided to go to sleep at 6:00 pm, that decision was made for them. Not like they minded though, I mean really.