Hy-PO-tension

If any of you had been here this morning to witness the little meltdown I had (and I'm awfully glad you weren't), you would probably be certain that I had a problem with high blood pressure, a.k.a. hypertension. Truth is, it was probably the closest my blood pressure has come to normal in a few weeks. Like 19, if you're counting. Every doctor's appointment I go to, I'm complimented on how great my blood pressure is. And I nod, and laugh, and quip the same joke about how hard I work at it. I'm starting to rethink that response. Because low blood pressure doesn't always equal great blood pressure.

I remember waiting in line to pay at a store when I was about this pregnant with Addie and suddenly feeling dizzy and faint. When I mentioned this to my OB, she told me it was just my blood vessels relaxing in anticipation of the increased blood volume that my pregnancy was bringing. Because it was my second pregnancy, my vessels already knew what to do and were either

1. Eagerly anticipating their increased job responsibilities.

Or, and I feel this is the much more likely option,

2. Slacking off and "relaxing" early just because they could. Incidentally, they decided to get my intestines in on the action. Those intestines of mine are so relaxed about doing their job I'm thinking we could shoot a whole episode of Hoarders up in there.

My blood vessels have gotten increasingly lazy with each pregnancy. With Maggie, I ended up needing to teach all my lessons at church while sitting in a chair because I couldn't stand for more than a minute without feeling woozy. But this little fetus has taken it to a Whole. Notha. Level. It has completely cut off the blood supply to my brain.

This pregnancy, I get light headed when standing still for seconds. Without the movement of my legs, my body can't be bothered to get the juices flowing all the way to the top. I end up bending down quite regularly to "play with my kids" while waiting for Chloe after school when in reality, I'm debating just completely laying down on the sidewalk to clear my head. For the last 4+ months, I've been too lazy to even get mad at myself for being so lazy. I sleep 9 hours a night and wake up craving a nap. I stood under the water in the shower this morning, rinsing my hair, and couldn't remember if I was rinsing it in anticipation of washing it or if I was rinsing it because I had just washed it.

I leave gallons of milk on the counter for hours. Last night I put the dinner leftovers away in a container, then brought the pan over to the sink to wash it, along with all the pots from the last three night's dinners. I'm hoping I actually remembered to use soap when I washed them. When I finished, I turned around to find that despite thinking I had put the leftovers away, I had actually left the container on the table with the lid off. I'm sure pretty soon, something I've forgotten in the kitchen is going to give me a nasty case of salmonella. But hey, that might be the wake-up call my bowels need.

Even funner, I've been getting some really nasty headaches throughout this pregnancy. I've come to realize it's not my body telling me how desperately badly it wants Dr. Pepper and is actually my brain telling me it needs blood. Then, just this week I've started having a stiff neck and upper back pain. Initially I thought it was because I was spending too much time playing Bubble Blaster on my phone, but on a whim today, I googled "pregnancy hypotension" and guess what? Fatigue, light headedness, headaches, stiff neck and sore upper back are all symptoms. So, I took my afternoon rest with my feet propped up on the back of the couch. And now my back doesn't hurt as much.

Basically, I'm just looking for a way to justify all my bad behaviors this pregnancy. I'll keep googling until I find a diagnosis that also covers "extremely short temper" and "loss of ability to cook." But in the meantime, expect to find me lying on the couch with my feet over my head, cursing at angry birds while something in the kitchen smokes.

(And I will bring it up with my doctor at my next appointment, though I'm sure the response will be, "Just take it easy and drink more water and have your partner give you a back massage.")

Booger McSnottyface

For the second week in a row, I took Maggie home from church early because I didn't want to share the products of her nasty nose with the rest of the nursery. You're welcome. I will also admit I was eager to come home early myself because

1. I had the beginnings of a really special headache coming on.
2. Sacrament meeting had run about 20 minutes over, which in kid time equals 3 extra hours of trying to keep them "reverent."
3. I love to ditch church. Yeah, I said it.

I still wasn't clear as to whether or not my motives in coming home early were entirely pure (i.e. Maggie really was sick) until this morning. Here's the thing. Maggie gets colds like I get colds. We both start to feel rotten for a day, maybe have a scratchy throat, a little mucous, nothing super specific.

But day two, the faucet opens. Seriously. My nose runs so hard and fast, it's all I can do to stem the tide. The snot pouring from it is the consistency of water, and if I don't keep a tissue in hand at all times, is likely to just flow forth onto all surfaces. I once had a roommate remark that I wasn't using my tissues very "effectively" because she couldn't believe how many I was going through. During this portion of my colds, I have often had to resort to sticking tissues up each nostril just to do basic household tasks, or even go to sleep. You're right. I am very, very sexy.

After day two, the tide usually stems and the flood thickens, allowing me to function for a couple days until it thickens so much that it glues my throat shut and I have moments where I can't breathe. On those days, I use one of these. If you haven't tried one for allergies/colds/sinuses, you really should.

Today when I went in to get Maggie up for the day, I knew I was right in keeping her home from church. Because she looked like this.

Like an old man in a toddler suit. I say old man rather than old lady because her hair growth still puts her more in the old man category. Although Maggie is usually very willing to let me wipe her runny nose, and can even blow it when I ask her to (Unlike Addie, who still sucks in. Special.), I am not there to help her in the night. And in the night, she rubs that runny snot over every last inch of her face, right up into her hairline. And as a result, when that mucus dries and cracks, she looks like she's aged 70 years.

I've spent all day chasing that little monkey with a tissue, but I'll admit, I haven't worked very hard at cleaning the rest of her face. I'm kind of hoping if I let it build up, by tomorrow morning I will be able to find her work as a circus freak.

In the Fishbowl

For Chloe's first birthday, I bought her 3 small 10 cent fish. I think they died before we even reached home.

I refused to be defeated and bought her one more expensive fantail goldfish. His name was Fish. He was orange and white, and Chloe loved him. She loved him so much that at 18 months, she figured out how to scale the front of her dresser and get on top of her changing table so that she could reach the fishtank. One day I found her up there, something clenched tightly in her little hand. It looked like a hairbow sticking out of her fingers, so I didn't worry about it until I noticed the water everywhere, and the piles of gravel, and finally, the empty fishtank. How she caught that sucker I'll never know, and how he survived the ordeal virtually unscathed is nothing short of a miracle. Sure, he always swam upside down after that, but he moved with us from our apartment to our first home and swam cheerily inverted until one day when he choked on a large bite of food. I think. Chloe's not talking.

A few months after Fish passed, Chloe won a little fish at a party by throwing a ping pong ball in his bowl. His tiny, little bowl. Nemo lived in that bowl for several months, in increasingly cloudy water, until I realized he actually was going to stay with us. I went out, bought a new, bigger aquarium and a couple buddies for him, and now we had Nemo, the feeder fish, Tinkerbell, the calico fantail, and Gill, the Black Moor.

Addie and Chloe took turns doing this to the tank.

That's about half a can of flake fish food in there. And yes, the fish are actually in there, too, somewhere. You can see Nemo at the top. He's looking pretty bloated.

That batch of fish stayed with us for a couple years. Gill gradually changed color from black to gold, and grew to dwarf the other two fish. When they died several months ago, I'm pretty sure he had something to do with it. But he's not talking.

So now, giant, orange Gill has the tank all to himself. Until Maggie decides he needs extra care. Whereas the other girls were content to just encourage the other fish into obesity, Maggie has concern for his entire well being. For instance, the other day he must have looked like he had a cold because I found half a box of tissues floating in the top of the tank.

Another day, he looked bored and illiterate, so she provided entertainment.

Not only did she give him a book to read, but she drew pictures on the outside of the tank.

Maggie also likes Gill to feel a part of our holiday celebrations. A few weeks ago I discovered several small plastic carrots, collected from other Easter decorations, resting on the the bottom of the tank. I decided to leave them there. I figured they wouldn't dissolve, and Gill's big enough that if he decided to eat one, I think he really could get it down.

Most recently, one day I decided to break out of my usual morning lethargy and do a little gross housekeeping, namely cleaning out the shower drain. I removed several large, cheesy looking hairballs from its depths, then went to check on the kids in the kitchen. As I walked past Gill's home, I did a double take. I saw something resting on the bottom of his tank that I could have sworn I had just placed in the garbage can in my bathroom. I looked closer and realized that Maggie had now decided to share her favorite breakfast cereal with Gill.
Am I wrong in thinking that looks like something that would generally be found in a drain? I think not. This particular mess turned into several days of cleaning because even after I had removed all the shredded wheat and cleaned the entire tank, the water kept clouding up. I choose to think that it was leftover from the initial cereal hairball, and not because Maggie was pouring her milk in the tank. But I could be wrong.

(In case you don't know, you can now buy Chocolate Frosted Mini Wheats. They are delightful. And my kids love them. They (and the fish) eat more of them than I do. Plus, nutritionally, they are healthier than a bowl of Raisin Nut Bran (I did a comparison for Bracken's sake when he started complaining about how good our kids have it). But seriously, healthier chocolate cereal that actually tastes like chocolate. Have you tried the Special K Chocolately Delight? It tastes like death.)

At least my hearing is good

I am often amazed by the different sounds I can identify throughout my house during the day while in another room. For instance, I know which child just hit which other child just by the sound of the slap. I also know each and every time a certain child got up and snuck into the bathroom after bedtime the other night (4 times over the course of 2 hours), and I also know, just by the sound, that SHE DID NOT ACTUALLY HAVE TO GO. She just didn't want to go to sleep (and thanks to her antics, my sleep schedule got thrown off, too). I can hear when toilet paper is joyously being unrolled straight into the toilet by a toddler. And interestingly, the other day I was clearly able to distinguish exactly which knives that same toddler was pulling out of the knife block. One of my favorite sounds is the moment a child goes from pounding on the bathroom door with a fist, to lying on the floor and kicking the door. It is accompanied by the sound of defeat, in case you were wondering.

The one sound I truly cannot determine, though, is the silence after I emerge from a solo shower. And by solo, I don't mean that I was singing, I mean by myself, with no other people. And if I indeed had the opportunity to shower by myself, chances are, I took my time. And I probably sat down on my shower bench for a while and contemplated the wall. I would blame that little hobby on my pregnancy, other than I do it all the time. Sure, my mind occasionally wanders with concern that my children are up to something, but generally I am able to calm myself by thinking, "It's probably too late to stop them now, I might as well take my time."

However, once I leave the shower and can actually hear, then I start to worry. I turn off the water, I turn off the exhaust fan, I may even turn off the ceiling fan in the bedroom, and I cock my ear to the bedroom door. Silence. But what kind of silence? Is it the sound of happy children, playing quietly and contentedly in the other room (wishful thinking)? Is it the sound of brain dead children, immobile in front of the television (realistic wishful thinking)? Or is it the sound of children who are no longer able to speak, and are barely breathing in the aftermath of the havoc they have wreaked during the 15 (30) minutes I was ignoring them?

The simple answer is not so simple. It seems obvious that I should just open the door and see what is going on. But alas, despite the fact that my children cannot hear their own name shouted at them from 2 feet away, they are intimately tuned into the sound of my bedroom door opening and will come running as soon as it is cracked. Then, as I attempt to complete my daily beauty regimen, I will be subjected to many questions, such as, "Why are you wearing that? What is that for? Why does your body look like that?" I will also have to fight the toddler for every makeup brush and product I attempt to use. I will have to fish things I don't want thrown away out of the trash can and/or toilet. And I will have to break up fights. Assuming, of course, that this is a day when I actually groom myself. The chances of that happening decrease dramatically with each additional child in my room.

Also, if I leave the room before getting dressed, and they are indeed near death, I know I will immediately become consumed with life saving tactics and concern for their well being, and will be physically and mentally unable to dress myself at that point. And that means 911 would be showing up at my house to find that not only was I neglecting my children, but I like to be nude while I ignore them. I'm thinking being fully clothed, maybe even in a coordinating outfit, would make me look much better.

So I try to find a happy medium. I try to at least get my underwear on, and some of my clothes. Because it is not so easy to try to wipe the bottom of a toddler who has taken off her poopy pullup and started trying to climb onto the potty by herself when you are also trying to hold your towel up at the same time. And, as I learned today, it is much easier to clean a lot of chocolate shredded wheat out of the fish tank while wearing pants.

True Grit

A couple months ago, Bracken and I saw True Grit in the theatre. Bracken immediately put the original on our Netflix cue. Although I had been raised on a steady diet of John Wayne by my father, somehow I had never seen it, and neither had Bracken. As much as we enjoyed the Coen brothers' adaptation, we felt we should watch John Wayne's Oscar winning performance for comparison.

And I ended up being much more interested in Kim Darby. First, I noticed that she had the ever sexy Julie Andrews hairdo.
Then we noticed that not only had she stolen her hair, she'd also completely ripped off Maria's traveling outfit in The Sound of Music.
Yup, right down to the special skirt and boots.
However, there was definitely less singing in True Grit.
However, I was (mostly) able to overcome my distraction with Kim's tribute to Julie, until Bracken turned to me and said, "It's got raisins in it . . ."

"You like raisins."

And then, the comparison was all over for me. I vote for the new True Grit. Not only did it not have Kim Von Trapp in it, but that running scene at the end . . . .

Announcing

And here we have the reason I haven't been blogging. This production has consumed me, and made my only real interest of late finding more time to sleep. But we are excited to welcome this fourth, and final, installment to the Mannion family.

And, as always, it was such a relief to find there was only one baby in there. Though the doctor did remark on how busy this little embryo already seemed to be.

Firsts

We had some significant firsts in our house this week.

Maggie peed in the potty for the first time! Hooray!

Addie cut her own hair for the first time! Boo!

And Chloe said "Damn it!" for the first time! Boo?