Every now and then Rachel will remember to go through the kids' phone to see what sort of monologues Alexander has been recording. There are dozens of them and they're all adorably hilarious. Here are three that Rachel sent to me this morning:
One wondering whether anyone likes him (they definitely do):
One explaining how we ended up with a new vacuum (because sometimes he comes around the corner and crashes into people while they're carrying the vacuum and they drop it and it breaks):
Since the pool closed, it feels like we simply never leave the house anymore. I keep meaning to take the kids to the park at least, but by the time they finish their schoolwork I'm more than happy to let them run loose while I work on my schoolwork and so...we just never seem to leave the house.
My mom pointed out that they're probably just fine. We don't live in an apartment; we have a house with a big yard situated on a quiet cul-de-sac. They've been outside to play on the play set and jump on the trampoline and ride their bikes and play soccer and jump rope...but, still...we feel a little bit like we've been cooped up since September.
Cue the end of daylight savings time.
Now it's difficult to even get out for our traditional post-prandial stroll. This is a long-standing tradition in our house, whether I am pregnant and diabetic or not, but it becomes more important when I am pregnant and diabetic. When I'm not pregnant and diabetic, we get to our walk eventually. When I am pregnant and diabetic we rush through our after-dinner chores, clearing the table and sweeping the floor as fast as we can so we can get out the door with enough time for me to get a good walk in and have some rest time before I have to check my blood sugar.
It's a delicate balance between exercising too much and accidentally raising my blood sugar and exercising too little and...anyway.
We even have a rallying cry this time—a lusty cheer, "For Phoebe!" is often chorused by the children after anyone mentions that we need to go for our evening walk.
But now it's dark by the time we're finished with dinner. It's only been two days, I get that, and I really shouldn't gripe because I grew up much farther north where the sun sets much earlier than it does here. But still. It's awful.
To paraphrase my friend Kiristen, "How do I need the sun at 7:02 am in a way that I no longer need it at 5:37 pm?"
It makes no logical sense.
You've heard of baby showers, I'm sure—a little party to welcome a new life into the world and equip new parents with all the stuff a baby requires (or that society thinks a baby requires). Well, by the time you're expecting your sixth baby people tend to assume you have all that baby stuff, which I'm sure is often the case...
Unless you happened to have moved across the country and the child you thought was your caboose is well past babyhood. Then you've been offloading baby stuff for years, so when you find out you're expecting again you kind of panic realizing you've got...nothing (or, at least, very little).
Lucky for me—and parents everywhere—there are usually other parents who are offloading baby stuff when they think they've reached the end of their baby-rearing years.
And that's how you get a baby monsoon.
My cousin Dylan came by this afternoon with her car overflowing with baby paraphernalia!
□
one more "critical response" in Digital Resources□ one final (group) project in Digital Resources
□
three quizzes in Writing Pedagogy□ two zoom sessions in Writing Pedagogy
□ one final project in Reading Instruction
□ a variety of work stuff
□ one baby delivery
So I think the next month should be entirely doable, though when I look back at this semester I think I will forever wonder whether I was suffering from a severe lapse in judgement when I signed up for all of this. Taking twelve (graduate) credit hours while working and being pregnant and homeschooling five kids in the middle of a global pandemic was a little bit...nutso.
That said, I've just about made it through—we've all just about made it through—and I think next semester will allow for a little more breathing room. I met with my advisor the other day and she's being very flexible with my schedule due to my...impending circumstances. I've somehow plowed through all the required coursework for my degree except for my research methodology course, so I will definitely be taking that class next semester. And then my schedule will mostly be filled with research credits so I can design my thesis and...care for a newborn...
And keep raising my other five kids...
And work (the conference I'm helping plan is next semester, so things will be busier then than they have been this semester, or so I'm told).
And, honestly, that still sounds much more relaxing than what I'm doing now.
We also talked about taking the summer (and maybe even the fall) off completely (though I will still use that time to write and research) and then taking my final thesis course next spring (when I'll graduate), which also sounds like a good plan because I'm tired.
I don't think I'll ever regret taking this many courses this semester because I did need/want to get them more or less "out of the way," so to speak—before Big Life Changes happen (hello, baby)—but I think I will always and forever look back at this semester and laugh while wondering what on earth I was thinking.
At least, I hope I'll laugh.
I guess I should get through all my final project stuff before deciding whether to laugh or cry...
P.S. Master's degrees go by really fast, guys!
Today it felt like going to the doctor was my full-time job, which I really shouldn't complain about because with Zoë and Alexander I had to go to the doctor once a week for the last half of my pregnancies and I've only just started going every week this week (the last month) of this pregnancy. But today I had an appointment in the morning that ran longer than I was expecting and then I had to take Miriam and Benjamin to their well-child visits this afternoon (and that appointment ran a little longer than we were expecting as well).
My appointment went fine. I simply didn't realize I had to do another non-stress test, so that was a surprise. The test is easy—as I mentioned before, I literally just lie there—but it does take time. The baby seems to be doing fine, but the doctor noticed that I had quite a few contractions while I was lying there.
It's Baby Month!
I mean, technically next month is baby month, but my doctor's pretty sure this baby will come prior to then, and if she doesn't she'll be kicked out anyway because...diabetes.
Now, I have done more than my fair share of complaining about having gestational diabetes, that's true, but to quote from dear Marti again, "When you have no food in your belly, chewing on a complaint or two can bring a little comfort" (Leavitt, 2014, p. 43). As I've mentioned, it's hard to hear other pregnant women complain about their cravings when in my overall experience of pregnancy cravings are entirely irrelevant.
For example, "I wanted a mint chocolate milkshake but they were out so instead I had to get cookie dough." *pout*
(Cry me a river).
Or, "I live in a foreign country and can't find any of the things I'm craving so instead I've tried this, this, and this, which just don't quite hit the spot. But then I tried this and it's incredible and I ate an entire box!"
Puh-leeze. I'm over here, like, chewing on spinach.
Andrew went a little overboard with the pumpkins this year. First he got two "big ones" at Costco and then a few weeks later when he was at Kroger he thought to himself, "May as well get three little ones as well!" So he did.
But when he got home he found out that the three little ones were about the same size as the two big ones, so we ended up with five fairly large pumpkins. And then Rachel brought another one home from mutual so we had six pumpkins sitting on our porch!
Only was was carved, however, the other five were sitting around just waiting to be carved...until today.
I told Andrew that he was in charge of that activity and he gladly did so as soon as he got home from church (he's the organist currently). I left them to it while I did a little bit of a workout on the exercise bike (so that my body would know what to do with the lunch I'd just eaten) and then joined them later.
I hemmed and hawed over Halloween quite a bit this year. Last year we dressed up and went to the church drive-through party, but then hunkered down in the basement and didn't go trick-or-treating or anything. This year we skipped the ward Halloween party because I couldn't imagine milling about and socializing with that many people right now (though are numbers are getting better...I just couldn't bring myself to...perhaps once I get my booster and am no longer pregnant/diabetic...but then I'll have a newborn so, like...) but we did go trick-or-treating.
Most of our costumes were simply pulled from the dress-up box, which, thankfully, is overflowing after years and years of dressing up. Alexander couldn't make up his mind about what he wanted to be so I wasn't going to waste any time making him anything special for the occasion. At various points he wanted to be an owl, Batman, Superman, Spiderman, a knight, a dinosaur...you get the idea. I think he spent most of the month in costume some way or another.
In the end he settled on being Harry Potter, though he didn't commit to that plan until this morning!
Zoë recently finished reading the third Harry Potter book, so we watched Harry Potter 3 this weekend (along with Coco and Hocus Pocus; it was a real Halloween movie marathon over here, especially considering we also watched Disney's Adventures of Wild Toad and Ichabod Crane on Thursday during our homeschool day (since we finished reading The Legend of Sleepy Hollow)). Anyway, after watching Harry Potter, Alexander was sold on the idea of being Harry Potter (or simply "a human Hogwarts student," as he put it, when Zoë objected to his being Harry Potter because his hair isn't the right colour).
He was a very cute Harry/human Hogwarts student (Miriam made those glasses for him).
