"Mom can't- she's too fat"

Things are chugging along over here - always faster than I can go.  My pregnant pace seems exceptionally slow this time around, probably because there is one more short person to keep up with than the last time I did this.

Picking things up off of the floor - ugh.

Peeling my swollen self out of bed in the morning - ugh.

Leg cramps and internal dance parties all through the night - (see above)

Inability to retrieve fairly simple vocabulary words from the recesses of my brain - embarrassing.

And, as my aunt puts it, when you're pregnant you have to work twice as hard to look half as good.  Sadly, very true for me this time around.

My kids are really very tired of having a mom who can't do much.  Not only am I not much fun, but I can't even take care of their basic needs to their satisfaction.   Everything I do proceeds in a haze of slow motion, with some waddle thrown in for kicks.

4ish weeks to my due date, and I'm dilated to almost 2 cm.  If this were anyone's body but mine that would mean something.

Still no name for baby.  But I daresay she loves to dance, already.

I remain fairly convinced that I've been dealing with antepartum depression throughout this pregnancy; my emotional inability to keep up this blog being a primary symptom.  Crazy unhealthy apathy with a side of self-loathing.  All very uncharacteristic of me, and all very much in my face for months on end now.  If it doesn't ease up after delivery we shall have to explore our options.

Nursery plans are firming up - a few incredibly basic projects to complete to get it all together.  Naturally I cannot seem to find large enough snippets of discretionary time to make the least bit of progress.  It's going to take sheer panic to get anything accomplished.

My kids, while quite capable of driving me loopy, are inordinately sweet.  They play well together, generally look out for each other, and each do spontaneous things that melt my heart.

Sir O made me this card today:



The Captain still says things like "But I love you, I want to be right by you" to me when I tell him to go play or do his chores.   He still falls down a lot and currently has a klingon forehead of goose-eggs.



And both the older boys love feeling the baby dance in my belly.  Girl's got moves.

Our Gentleman just survived turning 2 while in the depths of teething his 2 year molars.  It's the crankiest and most tired he's maybe ever been and he's still a sweetheart.  Every day when I get him up from his nap he races for the bookshelf and begs to sit on (what remains of) my lap and be read to.  His speech teacher says he is the most pleasant and animated kids she's ever worked with.  He has thousands of lively facial expressions, half of which are calculated to turn mom into a puddle of concession.  Oh, and he's in for a lot of unanticipatable change.  Poor kid.



(PS - I made the white chocolate lemon cake from Rose's Heavenly Cakes for his birthday.  One of my favorite cakes EVER.)



And this is how we roll as we roll ever closer to an ambiguous finish line.  We don't know what it looks like, but we know it's coming.