Dumb Spotting

I had a really bad night's sleep last night.  Maybe 4 hours total.  I just spent way too much time lying awake.  I noticed at one of my many bathroom breaks that I had spotted (which I am still doing several times a week), and that in the dark it looked like it had a tinge of pink to it, instead of being all brown.

Then at 6:25am Noah decided to scream his head off for about 20 seconds (and then go back to sleep), so that woke me up and I went to the bathroom again.  There was more spotting.  A lot more than I've had in the past couple of months, at least.  I didn't go back to sleep of course.  I mean, who needs more sleep when they've already got a whopping 4 hours??

I'm not "worried," per say, but I am a bit concerned.  I don't really get it.  I mean, my last ultrasound back at 28 weeks (I'm 34 weeks now) didn't show any signs of spotting.  There was no evidence of a fibroid anymore, and no more evidence of any placental abruption at the edge of my placenta.  No more subchorionic hematoma.  My placental is far away from my cervix, and has been since they checked it again back at 23 weeks.

I'm not really understanding why I'm still spotting.  I don't really expect anyone to be able to give me an answer, either.  Not my midwife, not an OB, and not an ultrasound.

The only thing I can think of is that I've been doing alot lately.  I haven't stopped organizing, purging, and cleaning since last Friday.  5 straight days of a lot of movement.  I'm certainly not 'taking it easy'.  Maybe I should be?  Maybe all the physical stuff has caused another minor abruption at the margin of my placenta?  Maybe all the contractions (I'm quite sure I get at least 100 every day) have caused some minor dilation, which is causing the spotting?  My cervix has been super soft and not tightly closed during this whole pregnancy, so I'm hoping it's just the dilation thing.

I don't get why it only ever happens overnight while I'm sleeping.  It's not correlated with sex, so that's out.  But I think I've only had 1 or 2 incidents where there was actually a tiny bit of spotting during the day - all the rest of it has been overnight.  When I'm lying horizontal.  Isn't that weird?

I should probably call my midwife to tell her, because that's what she would want me to do.  But I am the opposite of an alarmist.  I never call the doctor about anything unless I am seriously concerned and think I need actual intervention.  In 2.5 years of Noah's life, the only time I ever took him to see the doctor outside of regular checkups was when he broke his leg.  He was sick a lot in his first 18 months of life, but I never took him to the doctor over it.  I was always sure it was just a virus and that there was nothing the doctor could do (my doctor friends applaud me for this attitude, by the way).

With this pregnancy, I don't want anything to be wrong, obviously, but I don't want anything to be "fake wrong" either.  I don't want to have to have extra appointments, extra ultrasounds, or have to go see an OB for his opinion, all for no reason.  At the same time, obviously I don't want there to be something actually wrong and to be ignoring it.  Although if there's something actually wrong, I feel like there would be more evidence other than some minor spotting (even though it's more spotting than I've been getting lately, it is still minor).

I'm sure I'll get a ton of comments telling me to call my midwife.  But I've been spotting regularly since I was 9 weeks pregnant, my midwife is aware at each and every appointment (and it's written on my chart), and my last ultrasound showed no reason for it, even though it was still going on.  I'm not really sure what else can be done about it at this point.

Maybe I will just try and take it easy.  Thankfully, in the past 5 days there has been no room, closet, cupboard, or drawer that has been untouched by my organizing and purging.  That's a house with a kitchen, 2 living rooms, 2 full bathrooms, 10 closets, a laundry room that doubles as storage, a small crawlspace/storage space, a playroom, 4 bedrooms, and an office (that's actually a bedroom but we use it as an office)... that's a lot of ground to cover.  Many a bag of donation and garbage has made it's way out of my house.  I feel like I am constantly doing this.  I'm just about done this round, so I can probably ease up now.

My remaining job is to create a filing system for all the paperwork we need to keep.  Our current one is despicable and impossible to navigate, because it was "set up" by my husband when we first got married.  Everything is in an unlabeled folder.  Some things were kept in the office, others were kept in our bedroom closet.  I don't know why I haven't done something about this earlier, because we misplace important paperwork on a regular basis due to our lack of a filing system.  All I can say is that I just didn't want to have to do all that extra work to fix what he didn't start (not trying to bash him here... I've accepted that he's a man, and his many strengths definitely lie in other areas).

Filing isn't physically strenuous, so I'm good to go there.  I'll try and spread out my housework throughout the week so I don't have any days that are really housework-heavy.  I should be able to minimize my errand running soon, and maybe I'll stop going grocery shopping.  And I'll be careful to add more protein to my diet (as per Dr. Tom Brewer), because I've been slacking in that department for the past month or so.

I guess we'll see what happens.

Busy Weekend

This weekend my extended family on my Dad's side was getting together at my aunt's house.  We usually do this every summer.  Unfortunately, my aunt's house is over 2 hours away.  After hemming and hawing over this for a month, we decided not to go.  There were several reasons for this decision.

-At 33.5 weeks pregnant, with my sweet baby in a posterior position (second posterior baby... WHY do my children insist on this position?!), I decided I didn't want to spend 4.5 hours in the car in one day.
-We didn't really want to put Noah through the 4.5 hours in the car in one day if we didn't want to go really badly.
-We had a lot of things we needed to get done around the house that we can't really do during the week because Justin is training
-We still had a ton of things that I specifically wanted to get done before the baby comes, because after he gets here it will be many months before we start spending time on little house projects and organization tasks again.

As much as I wish I could have seen my extended family (since we already skipped out on cottage week with them this summer due to pregnancy and Justin's busy training schedule), I'm glad we stayed home.  On Saturday alone we got the following accomplished:

-Folded laundry
-Cleaned upstairs bathroom top to bottom
-Vacuumed upstairs
-Vacuumed downstairs
-Vacuumed laundry room and put it back together (everything was still the way the electrician left it back in April, because we were expecting an inspector... who never showed)
-Unloaded the dishwasher
-Assembled Noah's new dresser
-Exchanged Noah's dressers
-Cleaned off the top of the fridge
-Cleaned out the hallway closet
-Organized various craft supplies and toys into baskets and found new homes for them
-Installed the curtain tie backs in Noah's room (which we have had for probably two years)
-Went grocery shopping

I did most of those tasks alone, but I wouldn't have been able to do them all without Justin at home with Noah.  And there was no way I would have been able to do the dresser assembly without him.  It went a lot faster considering there were two of us this time and it was the third time we assembled the same dresser model.  It took about 2.5 hours to do all of the assembly - a lot faster than the 5 hours it took the first time!

Also, grocery shopping is now a family affair.  It's really far too much exertion for me now and causes me to have a lot of contractions and get really sore.  So we've all been going.  It's a win-win so far.  I get to keep an eye on what we're buying; Noah gets a trip out into public, which he loves; and Justin does all the lifting and a lot of the putting away.

I had decided on Saturday evening that we'd be skipping church on Sunday morning.  Saturday was crazy busy with all the projects around the house, and we still had more projects to accomplish this weekend.  Plus I wanted some time to spend out by the pool, since Saturday was a gorgeous, hot, sunny day and we were all cooped up inside the entire day (except while grocery shopping).  Going to church fills up the entire morning and into the afternoon, in large part because we live 25 minutes from our church, so I made the executive decision to use that time accomplishing more things we needed to do, and then playing outside as a family.

So, on Sunday I/we:

-Folded more laundry
-Cleaned out under the kitchen island
-Unloaded the dishwasher again
-Cleaned out the garage
-Mowed and whipper-snipped the lawns

-Weeded through all our gift bags, bows, and tissue paper and got rid of the ones I didn't like.  Unfortunately I still have way too many (WAY too many) left that I really like and are in good condition.
-Went through more of my clothes to take out stuff to donate.  I emptied 23 hangers and a bunch of stuff from drawers.  My wardrobe is at about 30% of what I had 10 months ago; I don't even love most of it, but I kept the stuff that I was actually wearing regularly prior to getting pregnant.  Once I'm done with maternity clothes in about 6 weeks, I am kind of screwed.  For shirts, not for bottoms.


I'm so glad we got so much done this weekend.  I really never know which weekend will be my "last."  Not that I think I'll be having this baby anytime in the next, say, 5 weeks.  But it gets harder to move around every week.  My back hurts more, my pubic bone hurts more and more, and I'm just a little bit worried about when I'll finally be unable to accomplish any of the tasks I want to accomplish before the baby comes.

We still have several organizing jobs to do before I'll feel really good about us being totally ready for the baby, but this weekend was a huge step in the right direction.  Don't you just love getting things done?  I especially love when I get to take things OUT of my house instead of IN to my house.  After this weekend I have two big garbage bags of garbage, and two big garbage bags of clothes and other items to donate (and we didn't even go through Justin's clothes!).

Dresser = Done!

I couldn't handle the idea of not having that dresser built, and my closet not "finished" for a week.  So when Justin was in for lunch I had him unpack the dresser boxes.  I thought I would just work on drawers and stuff, and hopefully we'd have the dresser done in a few days.

Well, I just couldn't not finish it.  So I spent hours and hours working on it today.  I only needed Justin for a couple of parts where you absolutely needed two people.  He was only necessary for about 5 minutes total.  And to carry the thing upstairs into the closet.

I am so glad I got that dresser put together.  I wish there wasn't another one sitting down there in boxes, mocking me.

I think I might save that one for a few weeks, though.  I honestly believe that if I attempt to do this closer to my due date, it might actually put me into labour.  No joke, I have been contracting 1 minute on, one minute off, pretty much all day long.  My feet are killing me, my back is aching, I can hardly walk, and I feel like I'm in early labour.  Every time I sat down today I felt like the baby's head was in my vagina.

Anyway, my nesting list is dwindling.  Everything has been ready for the baby for awhile now, but there are other things around the house that I want to get done before the little Bambino makes his arrival.  Getting our closet dealt with was one of the major ones.  I'm 33 weeks on Wednesday, so very soon it will be time to start washing sheets, blankets, and towels, and gathering everything into one place for the home birth.

7 weeks until my due date... I'm starting to feel like it's actually within reach!

The Closet

I should have taken before and after pictures, but that slows down my life.

My closet has been a mess for awhile now, given that a lot of stuff got thrown in there when we painted our room, and it's difficult for me to clean it out when I'm hugely pregnant and have so many random physical issues.  However, this morning I finally decided to deal with it.

It was hard.  And I'm not done, but I can't reach up on the shelves at the top of the closet to organize them. Thankfully the floor is cleaned off, though, and space has been made for the second dresser we're going to be putting in there.

Unfortunately the dresser is still in pieces in the boxes we bought it in.  I originally bought 3 of them.  One for Noah, one for the baby, and one for our closet (I'm now wishing I bought two for our closet, because they are so spacious and wonderful).  The baby's got put together within the first week because I insisted.  I had to have somewhere to put all his little clothes.  The other two dressers have been sitting there for over a month now.

My husband is not lazy, and he's not a procrastinator when it comes to his own 'stuff,' but when it comes to something like building a dresser so that more of the clothes he wears frequently can be moved from downstairs up into our closet, and so that I can do more organizing?    Yeah, he's a major procrastinator then.  Granted, when you only have 2 days off a week, and on those two days you also have to mow lawns, whipper snip, vacuum the pool, go to church, visit with family and friends, and play with your kid, it is hard to make yourself spend 5 hours putting a dresser together (yes, those stupid dressers take about 5 hours each to put together).

It is physically impossible for one person to put the dresser together.  Otherwise I might actually attempt it.  I could put the drawers together by myself, but the boxes are HEAVY.  Unpacking them is too much for me to accomplish on my own while pregnant.  Plus I have to deal with Noah "helping" me if I try to do that, and it would probably take an hour per drawer because of his "help".  There are 6 drawers.  You do the math.

I really want to get this closet dealt with.  I don't want to wait until next weekend to finally get the dresser in there.  I guess I'm going to have to annoy the crap out of my dear husband and get him to work on it in the very few odd hours he has off during this week.  I feel bad doing that.  I would get my Dad to come over and help, but my parents are leaving the province tomorrow and won't be back until the following week.

I didn't plan this out very well, did I?

The Life of a Mom

I originally titled this post "The Life of a SAHM."  But then I realized that working moms probably have the exact same problem, it's just not an "all day long" problem, it's an "everyday after work" problem.

Maybe some moms don't have this "problem" at all.  If you don't... well, I don't want to hear from you!  (I kid).

So, anybody with children, especially very mobile children, has probably made the observation that it is incredibly hard to keep the house tidy (nevermind clean) when you are home all day.  This might seem counter-intuitive, because if you're home all day, you have all day to tidy and clean.  But seriously, a toddler makes messes much faster than you can clean them up.  At least MY toddler does!  And I don't really have any desire to be walking from one room to another putting things in their proper places ALL DAY LONG.  I would literally never be able to do anything else.

Probably one of our biggest problems is that we have an open concept house, and Noah is allowed to go anywhere.  Sure, we gate off the stairs so he can't sneak downstairs while I'm cooking or showering.  But other than that, there is no good way to keep him contained, and there never has been.  He's been opening doors and walking through them since he was 12 months old, so things are constantly ending up where they don't belong.  I always have random items, like stethoscopes, play dishes, play food, magnetic letters, and puzzles pieces in all the bedrooms and bathrooms (almost everyday when I'm in the shower Noah brings me a bowl of cut up wooden fruit and says "Here you go, Mommy!").  And things like toothpaste, tooth brushes, salad tongs, potato mashers, and mixing bowls end up on my living room couches.  (Yes, those things are kept in drawers, but our drawers and counters are arranged so that it's no possible to install those latch thingies.  I tried.  I guess all our counters jut out too far.)

There aren't many things I miss about being childless.  But a house that stays tidy for more than 2 minutes is definitely one of them!  Even when my entire house is clean I feel like it isn't because it's so hard for it to stay tidy.

Today I had one of those days where I was cleaning, tidying, and doing laundry all day long, but I felt like I was walking on a treadmill - as in, I was doing these things, but felt like I wasn't moving forward because there were so many things still left to do!  Vacuuming the whole house, cleaning both full bathrooms, washing the floors, stripping beds, washing/drying/folding 5 loads of laundry, unloading dishwasher, loading it back up, feeding the child several times, and constantly putting things back where they belong.

I am not even really complaining.  I'm just stating facts.  I am actually thankful.  Noah is much more obedient than he was 8-10 months ago, and doesn't touch the things that he really shouldn't touch.  So it's not like he's scattering the vitamins and medications from my bedside table throughout the house.  He's not pulling clothes out of our drawers (like he did A LOT from about 9 to 15 months).  If the lower kitchen cupboards are unlocked, it's not like I end up with unopened salad dressing and BBQ sauce bottles in the bathroom.  He doesn't go in the fridge because he knows he's not allowed, so I no longer get bags of bloody ground beef lifted onto my duvet cover.  But in the interests of encouraging toddler creativity and independent play, unless he can hurt himself, break something, or end up wasting a lot of money (like dumping out a 500 count bottle of digestive enzymes), he is allowed to have access to most of the stuff in our house.  Besides, there's not really a lot of places we can hide these things, since we can't lock our drawers (he would figure out the locks, anyway, even if we could).

But man, I really do wish that I had a magic wand... I would walk into each room, wave it, and everything would fly to the room it belongs in, and settle in its proper place.  That sounds glorious.

Okay, off to fold my 5th and final load of laundry.  And watch TV.  Before I collapse into bed.

The daily grind can be just that - a grind.  But since everyday is filled with multiple spontaneous hugs, kisses, and "Wuv you Mommy"'s from this adorable kid...

It sure is worth it:)

Getting Rid of Crap

(This is my 500th post... I thought I should mention that, even though I don't make much attention to that stuff.)

I think I'm becoming Minimalish.  Definitely not Minimalist, but maybe Minimalish.  I sick of having so much stuff, and I'm taking steps to get rid of it.

We live in a 2500 square foot house that has almost no storage.  There is a small crawl space under the stairs, and a small amount of storage space in the laundry room/furnace room.  There are, however, 5 bedrooms plus a large office.  We dedicated one bedroom to be used as storage, and the office has also gotten awfully storage-y. 

This arrangement has never been acceptable to me.  We would like to have three children, ultimately.  I don't want my 3 children to have to share bedrooms when we have a 5+1 bedroom house.  Plus we need to have a spare room with a queen bed for Justin to sleep in when I'm not sleeping and he's breathing loudly (can you say 'every night'?).  So between the 3 kids, Justin and I, and the spare room, we need all 5 bedrooms. 

This takes away our storage bedroom.  And leaves us nowhere to put the crap that dwells in there.

I know right now we only have one kid.  But I'm a planner.  I think ahead.  It's what I do.  So my goal is to fit all of our storage stuff in the laundry room, crawl space, and maybe a little bit in the office. 

If you saw how many boxes and bins we have, you would realize that is currently impossible.

I have realized that, really, we shouldn't need storage space.  Not much of it, anyway.  With the exception of baby stuff we are saving for the next child (which we have too much of), if we don't use this stuff, why do we even have it?  Why are we letting bins and bins of stuff take up space in our home?  It's weighing me down, mentally and physically.

So I'm getting rid of crap. 

I started with half my wardrobe.  That's right, I gave 50% of my clothing to goodwill.  I got rid of all my clothes that are nice, but don't fit.  I got rid of all my clothes that fit well and flatter my figure, but I never wear.  I got rid of all the stuff that I don't wear, but I might wear someday.  Because I finally got it through my head that even if I might wear it someday, that doesn't mean I need to wear it someday.  I have other clothes I can wear instead.

Everything left in my closet and drawers are clothes I have worn in the past year (allowing for seasonal changes, and minus my maternity wear which I haven't worn for 15 months but will be wearing again one day, hopefully).  It makes me feel free.  I want to get rid of more!  As someone who always had the hardest time parting with clothing, finally getting rid of stuff is addicting!  I'm forcing myself to take my time with some of the clothes, because I don't want to regret getting rid of something.  But I could really get rid of a lot more.  My ultimate goal in this area is to be able to fit both Justin's and my clothes in our walk-in closet, which currently only holds my clothes.  Justin has his own double closet in the upstairs spare room (yeah... we need to work on that).

I am also getting rid of other stuff we don't need.  Things I packed away when I was decluttering... what's the point in keeping it?  I don't need a box full of fun and fancy coffee mugs.  I never used them in the 3 years they sat in the cupboard, and I have 16 coffee mugs left that belong in my dishware set.  The stereos and CD players I haven't used in ages... why keep them?  The old TV taking up space in the office?  We will never use it, let someone else have it.

I have a plan in my head to go through the bins that were tranferred here from my parents house and be ruthless.  I have three bins filled with memorabilia.  I think I could whittle it down to one.  Two, at the most.

I'm not sure what to do with the $7000 worth of university books and texts.  I wish I had sold them to the used bookstore on campus after I was done with them.  I kept them out of pride.  I read every single word in every single one of those books!  And there are hundreds of books!  Most of them are in perfect condition, but as far as I know there's no market for these books at the second hand bookstore where I live.  I might be able to donate them to a library, but I really wish I could get some sort of profit from them.  Making some money on them would make it easier to part with them.

I need to convince Justin to get rid of some of his boxes, too.  I might just do it for him.  He doesn't even know what's down there, so what would it hurt?

Bullets on Friday

-Noah is sick.  Again.  Another cold.  His 10th illness in 13 months of life.  Or rather, in less than 10 months, since the first time he got sick he was 3.5 months old.  Seriously, my child and I both have the worst immune systems ever.

-Noah slept over 12.5 hours last night, just getting up to nurse once at 5am.  I did not sleep nearly as well, and by 7:45am I was starting to worry he was dead.  When I checked on him he was just sitting up in his crib, so obviously not dead.

-I think Noah had an allergic reaction to taco seasoning.  A couple of nights ago we had tacos for dinner and he ate cheese, tomatoes, and taco meat.  His chin broke out in hives and his little patches of eczema, which were almost completely cleared up at his diaper change before dinner, flared up bright red again.  He eats cheese, tomatoes, and ground beef on a fairly regular basis (cheese is almost everyday).  Taco seasoning was the new thing.  I'm skeptical though, because he's had chilli before on many occasions.  Chilli seasoning and taco seasoning have almost the same ingredients.  I guess we'll see next time we have tacos.  I will admit that we checked on him about 5 times between putting him to bed and going to bed ourselves.  We never do this, but again, we were worried he would stop breathing.

-I'm babysitting Aubrey right now.  Is it wrong that I'm annoyed that she keeps trying to steal my kid's toys right out of his hands??

-Is it wrong that I think it's ridiculous that she's given chocolate milk because she won't drink regular homo milk?

-My principal has still not acknowledged my resignation in any form.  No call or email saying he got it.  Well, he must have.  Otherwise he would have called me to see what was up, since today was the deadline.  I'm fine with not having to talk to him, but I do think he is a crappy boss who doesn't handle things properly.  Not even acknowledging an employees resignation?  There are like 15 staffers at that school altogether, including all the part timers, secretaries, and custodians.  The least he could do is acknowledge my letter!  I'm so glad I'm done with that place.

-I don't know what to make for dinner tonight.  I go through this everyday.  About a month ago I made a meal plan for the week and didn't stick to it at all.  I'm ridiculous.

-I started painting my coffee tables about 3 weeks ago.  I don't even have one table done.  It would have been done, but I sanded it before applying the second coat because of the extended drying time, and for some reason some of the greyness from the sanding is still showing through the second coat.  I think that's weird.  The other two tables are only primed.  I lost my groove.  And I think my paint brush is drying up in the fridge.  I'm considering buying a new one instead of trying to clean it.  It's oil paint.  And mineral spirits smell like crapola.

-I still haven't organized Noah's closet.  Or the front hall closet, or the closet by the door.  I lost my groove there too.

-I guess I shouldn't be too hard on myself for not finishing these things.  I need big chunks of baby-free time in order to do them, and I haven't gotten that at all in the past several weeks. 

-I'm tired.  And kind of cranky.

Dear Weather: Please Look at the Calendar

Seriously.  It is April 3.  Maybe,  just maybe, IT'S TIME TO STOP SNOWING!!!

I was pretty ticked off when I looked out the window on this otherwise lovely Sunday afternoon and there were enormous, gigantic snowflakes falling fast and furious.

Alright, I live in Canada.  I get it.  But every single time we have a thaw and have a yard that is free or almost free from snow, it freakin snows again!!!

I need for the weather to warm up.  Along with the organizing streak I've been on, I'm on a furniture refurbishing kick, and when paint is drying - at least the paint I'm using - it needs to be at least 10 degrees (50 F) while you're painting and for at least 48 hours afterward.  This weekend I started refinishing some hand-me-down coffee tables we have that I was not in love with.  I was able to prime all three of them and paint one coat on one of them, but I'm using oil paint and it's a longer dry time than latex.  So I couldn't move the table into the house where it's warmer, because the paint stays tacky for a really long time.  I have an insulated garage, but it's expensive to keep electric heaters going constantly to keep the temperature at 10 degrees.  Plus, my garage is also a gym where my husband trains clients and works out himself pretty much every day of the week. 

I don't know when I'll have time to paint a second coat on that table, much less paint the other tables!  Patience...

In the meantime, I am still organizing.  Here's Noah helping me:



He's carrying the attachment to my dustbuster. 

Here's my closet before I got at it (it's totally embarassing, I can't believe I've posting this):

Here's my closet after:

Here's Justin's closet before:

  

Here's Justin's closet after I removed the strange objects piled underneath all that clothing, threw things out, and built him a "shelving unit" (I use that term loosely):

The wire shelving unit in there was something I've had since high school.  I used it in university, but for the past 4+ years have had no idea where it was.  When I was cleaning out Justin's closet I kept thinking of how perfect it would be for him in there.  I really didn't know where it was, though.  Then we were cleaning out our crawl space (a whole other story), and in one of the boxes I found it!  I was thrilled.  It also reinforced why I have such a hard time getting rid of things... I always find I really need them later on!

And while I'm at it, I'll show you my new arrangement under the kitchen sink.  Unfortunately, I didn't take any before pictures.  If I had, you might realize just why I keep opening up my cupboards to look inside.

The bins stacked on the left are containing all of our plastic shopping bags that we reuse as garbage bags.  Before I reorganized, they were just strewn all over in there.  Just a messy mountain of tied up plastic bags.

And here is with the garbage can in:

Sigh.  I love organizing.

My Birthday

My birthday was great, as I anticipated. 

I was supposed to go out for lunch with Erin and Aubrey, but I had been babysitting Aubrey the day before, and she unfortunately ended up fulfilling my diagnosis of having the flu.  She was very fussy all day Tuesday, wouldn't eat much, and threw up the small amount she did eat - but the amount of barf was small, and could have just been spit up.  So when Erin called me a few hours after picking her up and told me that Aubrey threw up her entire huge dinner (and proceeded to spew enormous amounts of vomit all night long), I was sadly proven correct.  We appropriately cancelled our lunch plans on Wednesday, and I have been living in fear ever since that one or more of the three members of this family - two of whom were exposed to Aubrey for a good 8 hours while she had the flu - would get sick and start throwing up.  Again.  Seriously, I wouldn't be able to take it.

It's Friday now, and she was here on Tuesday... I think we're in the clear, yes?  Happy birthday to me!

So lunch was cancelled, and I just spent the day hanging out with my best little dude.  Noah was lots of fun, of course. 

My parents came over at about 2:30 and stayed until 5:30 (my Dad was working nights that night).  They brought dinner and a cake.  Justin trained a client until 4:30, then had to shower, so we ate as soon as he was clean.

After my parents left I was suddenly inspired to clean and reorganize under my kitchen sink.  This necessitated me cleaning and reorganizing the bottom of our bathroom closet.  This might sound like a horrible birthday project, but I am obsessed with organizing and cleaning right now, so it was actually perfect.  And I am so happy with the organization under my kitchen sink that I just keep opening the cupboards to gaze lovingly at its neatness (this is annoying, considering we have child-locks on our cupboards.  If not for those, I would probably gaze into those cupboards about 4 times more often).

While I was finishing that up, Justin bathed Noah and got him ready for bed.  I nursed him to sleep, and then Justin and I hung out for the rest of the evening, as per usual.  Honestly, I have no clue what we watched on TV or what we did, other than eating our favourite ice cream.  I think this is weird, because it's only been 2 days, but whatever. 

So yeah, good birthday.  It's not so much that so many outstandingly wonderful things happened.  It was pretty much a normal day.  And I suppose there was even the "disappointment" of a cancelled lunch date.  It's just that after going through infertility and then being blessed with Noah, I feel like I've lost any sense of "entitlement" on my birthday.  I just don't feel like it has to be this perfect, special day that's all about Lauren.  Heck, I'd make my own birthday dinner and cake.  I really don't care.  I'm just happy to spend the day with people I love.

And I did that:)

(Please excuse my appearance, I wasn't really camera ready:)