Category Archives: Home Sweet Home
Posts about homelife in the mountain forest
Happy Birthday to Me!
It isn’t hard to turn 40 when you are surrounded by all this beauty. The aspens have just started to bud. Most of them have completely lost their little “caterpillars” and the whole mountainside is covered in chartreuse and pine green. Just as I’m starting to enjoy the long walks in the warm sunshine, however, another snowfall covers everything in white. All the little flowers are sagging from the extra weight. It’s beautiful, but I have not been here long enough to be sure that the plants are hardy enough to take it. So, I enjoy it with hesitation.
May Flowers
I cried at the end of Megamind months before I started getting morning sickness. It’s not my fault, he was always trying to be loved, but he just had the wrong influences. Anyway, it gives me pause to wonder how ridiculous I will be in the coming months with hormones askew. I guess I have another 4 weeks of nausea, then a nice break for 4 weeks before the party begins. I will leave the funny anecdotes of my children’s quickening for the fourth or fifth month.
Now I have to think of a way to let my family in on my little secret. Maybe that’s why I don’t announce like so many (my friend already told everyone and we’re due the same time): I like to enjoy my privacy while I can. When you are expecting, you are public property. Even when you are minutes from having your insides squeezed out of the most ridiculously under-sized opening imaginable, you are not allowed to be modest. My doctor asked me if some students could come in and observe. I figured, “why not?” I’d already had two shifts of nurses and another doctor up there, my body was not my own by a long shot.Having a midwife for the third one made it much more private, at least. I wish I weren’t going to be considered high risk so I could have one again.
I am much older than I was the last time I took this trip. I am not in the best shape I could be. I have not been trying not to get pregnant for awhile, but I was trying to get into shape and hoped I would be further along than I am. That makes it a little scary, but I guess it’s always a little scary. I was kind of hoping for a girl this time, but I don’t think I managed it. I heard that girls make you sicker and give you bigger breasts. I’ve never been one for nausea and bigger than nothing would at least be something. Unfortunately, I don’t see any difference in either realm. I’m now hoping that was all hogwash. I was leaning toward a girl because I don’t have one and I feel a little under-represented in this wilderness. My husband, my three boys, two dogs–all male. It’s just me and the cat. One more girl wouldn’t really even the odds, but it’d be a start. I guess I wouldn’t know what to do with a girl, anyway. I never was much for makeup and gossip. I can’t stand high heels or romance novels. I only see chick flicks when I’m with my sister. Not to say that I would fit in at a rodeo or construction site. I do get a little thrill out of doing something physical that I couldn’t do before, but I hate to sweat. I guess I always thought I was too logical to be girly. Still, if I managed to make it through my childhood without turning into a tomboy or a princess, I guess I can raise a daughter the same way. Of course, with 3 big brothers, she’s going to know how to throw a ball! She will also have no trouble keeping the boys away. Little girl, are you in there? I will have to clear my mind of all this until the ultrasound, but I wish, I wish, I wish…You know this blog will disappear in the event this is a boy, because I would not for a minute want my child to feel unwanted in any way. I love my boys and I’m stronger because of them. I will have no problem loving another boy. Still, the cat does a lousy job of arguing for a Jennifer Garner movie over Clive Owen (like I blame her!) so I’d like one vote on my side.
Starting Fresh
This is something new for all of us. I grew up in the country, but I was surrounded by cornfields not mountains. My children have lived in the city all their lives. My husband has mostly lived in the city, with an exception of two years when he lived on a farm in Plattsburgh, Missouri. I remember how much fun it was to explore when I was a kid and felt like I was somehow harming my own children by not allowing them the same benefits I received from the great outdoors. My children are all boys and I was a bookworm, so I felt doubly sure that this was the perfect setting for their own childhood. They live in a time where imagination is something akin to mental illness, not something you use to entertain yourself. I don’t want them to think that entertainment can only come on a disc that you insert into a machine to display on a television set. I have spent two weeks at this cabin with my family so far, and I have only heard “I’m bored” once. We have seen herds of bighorn sheep and mule deer. We have found a red fox relaxing a few feet from our back deck and signs of some kind of burrowing animal. We have followed the tracks of a rabbit and some kind of small dog (maybe the fox?). We have made discoveries together as a family, and that is worth all the inconvenience of living miles from town. We are weeks away from spring, so I can only imagine the discoveries will increase as the days go by.
cabinfever12 