life continues

How about a list to catch up on things?

- I'm 30 weeks pregnant now and have a nasty case of PUPPS (pruitic urticarial papules and plagues of pregnancy) basically very itchy hives that cover me from head to toe. I would have never guessed this would be my down fall this pregnancy. I sucks and I wouldn't wish it upon my worst enemy. The worst part is that heat makes them so much worse. Seeing that I'm due in August this is very sad news.  I  don't sleep at night because I'm scratching all night long. The ones that keep me up the most are on my fingers and toes. Imagine having 10 bee stings on your fingers and trying to sleep through that. I have tried all sorts of medicine, nothing has helped. I haven't done steroids yet as it's really not good for the baby, and besides, as soon as I'm done with a course of prendisone the hives will come right back.

- Speaking of pregnancy, this time around I really know the meaning of exhaustion. Between keeping Adi and Belay fed, clothed, and bathed (sometimes),working in the evenings and on the weekends, attempting some sort of "house keeping", and helping Andy out with school events as much as I can I am totally spent. This means that anything that soothes my soul like spending time with friends and family doesn't exist. I blame some of this exhaustion on not sleeping due to the PUPPPS, but in reality I don't think anyone sleeps when they are growing a human being.

-Work. Where do I even begin? I really like working, I do. I don't really like my schedule. I started working evening and weekends when the kids were smaller with the intention of switching to days when they started preschool. Well they started preschool and I never got the day shifts I was hoping for. Again, it hasn't been that bad. But now things are a bit tougher. We are extremely short staffed (big surprise in the nursing world, huh?) Like we have 3 nurses to cover what 10 nurses used to cover. It sucks. I did not sign up for working this much. Again, this wouldn't be so bad if I wasn't in my 3rd trimester and so tired.

- I reminded Andy to be so very thankful that with 10 weeks left until the baby arrives I have not harassed him one bit about all the things that we still haven't done. Meaning that he is really cramping my nesting urges. We have no name, no car that will fit all 5 of us, no room/space for baby yet, no plans for maternity leave, just to name a few. If I could do these things myself, they'd be done. But Andy is one busy man:)

- I am really hoping some of these things above get remedied soon. But I'm not holding my breath. Although summer break does start next week...

- We celebrated our 2nd family day on May 2nd. We headed to the knoxville zoo for the day. We let the kids pick where we go to dinner. They picked mexican, as usual, but insisted that they dress up. Adi put on her fanciest dress and Belay wore a tie. Again, all the kids idea. We ate a lot of ice cream and tried time and time again to get them to understand why we celebrate family day.

- There are some really big changes going on with Andy's work and School. Nothing official yet, but big, kinda scary, things hopefully happening. I just keep reminding myself that nothing great comes easy.

- Kids have almost finished up with soccer. Practices are fun. Only 2 kids on the team actually like the games though.

- Belay learned to talk when he turned 3 and hasn't shut is mouth once since. Literally, the kid never stops talking, loudly.  His middle name  Tesema means  "he will be heard" translated into 3&4 yr old language is " a very loud little boy" and oh how fitting it is.
3 has been a challenge in so many ways with him. I do remember Adi being tough at 3 too. Now that Adi is 4 she seems to be the most fun kid to hang out with ever. Belay does still have glimpses of the sweet boy we once knew. Anytime he sees a dandelion he picks it for Adi. He also really wants to name the baby "flower". He is starting to get more used to the idea of another sister, but also talks a lot about when he gets a brother from Africa (this, by the way is not actually happening any time soon if at all:)

- Adi has learned and grown so much this year. She will do one more year of Pre-k before she starts kindergarten.  I was really young for my class all through school and didn't like it at all. I don't want Adi to have to deal with the same thing.

I'm hoping to upload some pictures soon, but I think that captures most of what is going on in our lives right now. My main goal is to get a few days off work to escape to a beach with the kids before the baby comes. Not sure if it's gonna happen, but a girl can dream right?