August has been, to put it mildly, challenging so far. I’m 36 weeks pregnant today, and well, I’m just having a hard time. Every morning, I go over my mental to-do list of things that really should be accomplished before this baby arrives, and every evening, it’s all I can do to contain the mess made by the tiny tornado living in this house. I really fear for this poor little baby- poor thing is really going to have to compete with a lot of neediness and chaos going on around here. On my to-do list: setting up his/her therapy fund.

This stage I’m in is just hard. I feel a little guilty complaining about it because I know there are so many who deal with more kids/harder medical situations/more stressful finances than us. But I just have to admit, this is where I am right now. Most days I feel completely and overwhelmed by my current life and the life that is to come in just a few short weeks. I just keep telling myself that perhaps it will be a little easier when I’m not pregnant and can feel better physically and have more energy (but then there’s the sleep deprivation).

I never could have predicted 6 months ago how draining and challenging 2 1/2 year old Charlotte could be. We started off the year (and this pregnancy) in such a sweet spot with her, but it has escalated into a not-so-sweet stage. Poor thing has dealt with a lot the past few months, along with it being summer and a billion degrees outside and no real routine- but she is testing every single limit every second of the day. I am so, so frustrated with her behavior and it makes me so sad that she seems so miserable so much of the day. And the mess she makes. Dumping toys, food everywhere, playdough remnants stuck to the furniture- it’s making me crazy. Yesterday while she napped I packed up 80% of her toys- I just can’t take the constant dumping right now. I’m praying that even though the baby is going to turn things even more upside down for her, a more structured routine and cooler weather will help all of us settle down a bit.

Grayson is having a good week. He was in the hospital last week for 4 nights- he caught a virus that both Charlotte and I had with very mild symptoms but just knocked him flat. The worst part of this illness for him was it caused terrible, horrible pain in his legs/hips- so much that we were worried about a bone infection or other post-surgery complication. He was on round-the-clock pain meds again the whole time we were in the hospital. Fortunately, since we’ve been home is pain has been so much more manageable and seems to be less and less every day. We follow up with the surgeon and his rehab doctor next week. His school starts back Thursday (hallelujah!) but he has a tube-change scheduled that morning so he will start back on Friday.

I am surviving the last few weeks of pregnancy, although it feels like just barely. The nausea is definitely better than it has been, although I still have to wake up at 2 am to eat and take part of a Zofran, or I am a sick mess in the morning. But the nausea has been replaced with other pains, sleeplessness and just general discomfort, which I know is all normal. I’ve never made it past 38 weeks and my doctor doesn’t seem to think I will this time either, so most likely I have less than 2 weeks to go- eek! I considered scheduling an induction, because the unpredictability of life right now is just killing me, but she can’t do it before 39 weeks, so it’s probably not an option anyway. And because this is my last time to do this, I really do want to go into labor on my own.

So that’s life right now. Exciting times coming very soon- let’s just hope I survive until then!