My love of Christmas is SO INCREDIBLY STRONG it can actually make me kind of Scroogish. I just like my traditions to be the SAME every year. That’s why they’re TRADITIONS. You know those books that list all the questions you and your partner should discuss before getting married? “What kind of lights go on the house?” should be NUMBER ONE. Otherwise you might end up shouting at each other over colored vs. white vs. blinky lights. Not that we would do that – I married within my own Christmas rules.

The house can't even CONTAIN all the Christmas, which makes the front porch Holiday Central.

1. Colored lights go on the tree/in the house. White lights go on the outside of the house. NO EXCEPTIONS. And absolutely no blinking.

Outside lights are hard to see during daytime photos, but they are white.

Tree = colored lights

Colored lights on the banister seemed like a good idea, until the toddler tried to throw himself down the stairs to see them.

2. Ornaments are meant to be collected over many years, so when you eventually become a grown up and have your own tree you have your own treasured ornaments. None of this a different-theme-for-each-year bs with all green or all red or whatever. And for the love of tiny Christmas Baby Jesus, LABEL them.

3. REAL TREE. Best when cut down one’s self in the freezing cold but any real tree is still ok. I will consider exceptions for allergies, but only with a doctor’s note.

We have this same photo (minus 1 belly and 1 toddler) for the last 5 years. I'm "helping" while E cuts it down.

4. Stockings shall contain: candy, socks, Chapstick, fruit. Amended to include pistachios, per E’s request. Additional items are welcome but the above are non-negotiable.

5. One (1) present may be opened on Christmas Eve, especially if it contains holiday themed pajamas/clothes to wear to candlelit service.

6. Speaking of presents, unless they are from Santa they go under the tree as they are wrapped/received so there is plenty of time for shaking and guessing.

Despite the late state in getting this place all Christmasy, we’re in pretty good shape. All the rules have been followed and if I were to go into labor right now I’d have a lovely, well-lit, pine-smelling house to bring my holiday baby home to. None of our relatives will get their gifts until February (I am DREADING the trip to the post office) but hey, we’ve got our own gifts wrapped and ready!

Now, who wants to fight over real vs. fake trees?

I’m a little late, but today my list is much much longer than it would have been if I wrote it yesterday.

I am thankful for…

A good hospital less than a mile from my house.

Doctors, specialists and nurses who couldn’t have been any nicer and never once acted the least bit annoyed to be working on a holiday.

Narcotics.

A healthy baby girl who refuses to be bothered by anything from contractions brought on by pain to surgery. Maybe I should add Super Woman to our possible name list.

Excellent health insurance that allows me to get all the care I need. Total out-of-pocket costs: $9 for two prescriptions. Score another BAZILLION points for socialized medicine.

More narcotics.

A husband who is an active participant in childcare duties and has no problem single parenting for two and a half days.

A bedtime routine with Little Evan that doesn’t include me, so when I have to stay in the hospital for two nights he doesn’t freak out.

Friends who might live 500 miles away but send their mom over with Thanksgiving food. Turkey, stuffing & three different delicious desserts FTW!

Text messages, emails, and comments wishing me a speedy recovery and offers to help from so so many people, many who I only “know” through the internet. I have the best friends in the world.

Even more narcotics.

My king sized bed, hot shower, super comfy couch and a week’s worth of TV on DVR.

Awesome Black Friday sales from some of my favorite Etsy/Big Cartel sellers so I can support handmade AND get my shop on from my couch.

FINALLY getting to decorate for Christmas, even if that means making E haul it all down from the attic and put it up while I point and say “No no, the COLORED lights go on the banister!”.

Only 30 more days until my due date.

Only 22 more days until my mommy gets here.

Just one more teeny tiny narcotic before bed so I can get a full 8 hours for the first time in WEEKS.

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In case anyone cares, here’s what ended up happening with medical stuff (meaning full of TMI):

The horrible painful pain in my right side was being caused by a medium sized kidney stone that had traveled down my ureter and blocked it, which is why when Man Doctor poked me in the actual kidney I said it didn’t hurt. They waited overnight to see if maybe it would come out but it didn’t budge so they went in with a ureterscope and a little basket to pull it out. To prevent any further blockage, the urologist left a stent – a plastic tube – that goes from my ureter to my bladder in place for a few days. I go in on Wednesday to have it removed…which I fear is going to involve yanking it out by the little string that’s attached. I will bring my narcotics with me, just in case.

An ultrasound shows I have at least two more large stones on the right hand side that will have to be broken up, but it’s safer to wait until after the baby is born. The real problem is I have a few small ones on the left hand side to that could either pass with little/no problem or also get stuck. The urologist couldn’t believe I had never been diagnosed with kidney stones before considering the size/number I have now. So I’m on strict orders to drink a zillion gallons of water a day and not take any more Tums – turns out the calcium in the Tums (combined with pregnancy in general) is probably what caused the stones. So pregnant ladies, watch yourselves. As bad as my heartburn is I would take it a zillion times over instead of 18 hours of undiagnosed kidney stone pain. A BILLION ZILLION TRILLION TIMES.

Thanks again for all your thoughts, prayers and well wishes!! xoxo

Here’s how I was supposed to spend Thanksgiving:
Wake up at 3 am on Wednesday, whine for the whole 9 hour drive to Ohio about how uncomfortable I was, eat an enormous amount of pie, complain that E was playing WoW while the wominz had to mind the child, do a little Black Friday Shopping, eat some Chick-fil-a, whine about the 9 hour drive home, have a really nice time even after all the complaining.

Here’s how I spent my Thanksgiving instead:
Tuesday night before I went to bed I suddenly got a horrible stabbing pain on the right side of my back. After asking Dr. Google for advice, I chugged water and cranberry juice for a few hours, only to throw it all up because I was in so much pain. Called my OB’s answering service, Man Doctor on call said if it wasn’t contractions (it wasn’t) it was a pulled muscle so I should try putting heat on it and taking more Tylenol. I spent the entire night wandering around the house moaning and being miserable. When E woke up at 3 am I told him we could either go to Ohio the next day or he could go without me, because there was NO FRICKING WAY I was getting in a car until I felt better. At 7 am I gave up on waiting for office hours and called Man Doctor back to warn him I was coming into L&D. When I got there, they hooked me up to the monitors and said “oh look, contractions! and you said you were throwing up? definitely a pulled muscle.” Luckily the treatment for my “pulled muscle” was a lovely dose of morphine so I immediately passed out and when I woke up Man Doctor was gone and Lady Doctor was here. She decided maybe an ultrasound to check my kidneys would be a good idea. Turns out I have about a zillion kidney stones and I am not a crazy person who just cries over a pulled back muscle but instead someone in an enormous amount of agony with a condition that required immediate treatment as well as more procedures post-baby. The urologist decided he could take out the one causing me pain first thing in the morning. So Thanksgiving morning I was strapped down to a table in surgery, given a spinal and *you’re probably enjoying your pie right now so I’ll skip the rest*. By 11am I was back in my room and once again in possession of my iPhone charger (never ever ever go to the hospital for any reason without: phone charger, toothbrush.) By 2 pm I was free of tubes and catheters and leg pressure cuffs and just hanging out waiting for another dose of narcotics. Turns out the only good part of kidney stones at 35 weeks pregnant is that the baby is so close to full term I’m allowed to have drugs. Because NO ONE can just “breath through” a kidney stone. At least when you give birth you get a baby at the end to cuddle. I saw the stone they took out and it wasn’t very cute at all. Now I am just stuck here until they give me a couple more doses of antibiotics and write a prescription for a painkiller for me to take home. Because, oh, did I forget that part? They had to leave a stint in my ureter to keep it from swelling shut, so my pain has decreased about 60% but isn’t going away for at least another week – when they have to take the stint out again.

So to sum up: no road trip, no pie, no time with family, no turkey, extreme pain, slightly terrifying surgery, and one more night in the hospital to go.

I should win some sort of Thanksgiving do-over contest, right? Or at least maybe a pie. Good news is that Baby Sandy is taking it all like a champ, not the slightest hint she cares about mama’s kidney stones. Sadly, Little Evan hates being here so I haven’t gotten to see him much (because really, how much fun is it to have you baby scream for dada and run away when you try to hug him? Not fun. Good way to turn into a sobbing mess.)

I hope your Thanksgiving is going much better and even if you’re trapped at your crazy aunt’s house choking down burnt turkey at least no one has stuck anything up your pee-hole today.

Apologies for my inability to stick with a tense or person for that whole post. Writing from my iPhone is hard.

This weekend has been like some sort of terrible research project into the nocturnal habits of juvenile humans when exposed to large amounts of sunlight, food and fun. Code Name: tire the crap out of the baby even though it doesn’t guarantee anything.

On Saturday we met our friends Brandon and Amanda and their daughter Madison down in Essex, CT (Motto: The Best Small Town in America)(My New Proposed Motto: Where To Go If You Want To Feel Really Bad About Your Economic Status). We took the kids to a rather child-inappropriate museum on the history of the Connecticut River and let Baby Evan do his best hobo impression, running in shoeless circles for an hour before we tracked down one of the most delicious fried clam po’ boys I’ve ever had at the Black Seal Restaurant. It was so good even Baby Evan liked it, chomping down part of the giant hoagie roll it came on, an adult-sized handful of clam strips, and dozens of french fries. Did I mention he also ate half the grilled cheese we ordered for him? (Our first time ever ordering off the kid’s menu! THAT is the kind of milestone they should put in baby books.) We didn’t get home until after 3, but by thanks to some crazy magical time warp he was perfectly happy to run around in more shoeless circles yelling at the dog until bedtime, when he collapsed in a heap of exhausted cuteness and slept for TWELVE. STRAIGHT. HOURS.

On Sunday we ran last minute errands (including letting Hobo Baby Evan run up and down the aisles at Stop & Shop – you guessed it – shoeless) before Brandon and Amanda and Madison came over and we all headed out for our first boat ride of the season. The weather was perfect, the traffic on the river was incredibly light and the kids behaved (at least for the first half of the day) especially after stuffing them with Goldfish and Twizzlers. We spent four hours enjoying our horrible financial decision boat and the sun and the water, with everyone but Baby Evan jumping in (water temp: 72 degrees) for some splashy fun.  After forcing one overly tired child into an afternoon nap, we went over to Brandon and Amanda’s (can you believe they weren’t tired of us yet?! What I am going to do when they move to Virginia???) for grilled chicken pineapple quesadillas and a few rounds of the marble game.* For dinner, Baby Evan ate several pieces of bread with goat cheese dip and some plain cheese quesadillas plus a whole sippy cup of watered down lemonade. Instead of the quite, easy bedtime we were expecting when we got home, E and I had to take turns rocking/patting/nursing one INCREDIBLY ANGRY SCREAMING CHILD for two hours before he would go to sleep and stay asleep. Eventually a dose of (generic, non-recalled) baby tylenol was what did the trick and Baby Evan slept from 11 pm to 6 am this morning. Which, well, just isn’t good enough anymore. He needs at least 10 hours of sleep to keep him from turning into a monster and in my fetus-growing state I need at least 8 hours.

WHAT THE HELL, BABY EVAN? What was the one factor on Saturday that led to a good night that we somehow missed on Sunday? French fries? No afternoon nap? Less sunshine? More hobo shoelessness? Is it teething? Diaper rash? A broken leg? Demon possession? Please tell me so I can solve the problem with food/shade/medicine/holy water and start getting those wonderful 12-hour nights on a regular basis. Sandy and I thank you.

* The marble game: best card/board game ever. Requires 4-6 people and a special wooden board, unless you are REALLY addicted in which case I’ve heard you can make a board with cardboard and little hole-punch circles. Sometimes called “Social Security” in Ohio, but the rules are less stupid complicated.

Parents waste a lot of time wondering what their kids are going to be when they grow up. You can’t help it when you spend 24 hours a day with this little person who has the potential to be almost anything. Despite the stereotype of every mother wanting her kid to be a doctor, most parents probably have more realistic expectations than kids themselves. I spent most of my childhood planning to be the world’s first astronaut-ballet dancer-marine biologist-movie star. That didn’t work out so well.  But it doesn’t stop me from projecting just a liiiiiittle bit onto poor Baby Evan.

Baby Evan sits on the dog – He loves animals! He’s going to be a vet!

Baby Evan chews on a board book – He loves books! He’s going to be a famous writer!

Baby Evan falls off the couch – What a daredevil! Maybe he’ll be a skydiving instructor!

Baby Evan kisses my toes – He clearly has an interest in feet. He’s going to be a podiatrist!

Baby Evan eats trash – What an adventurous palate! I bet he wins Top Chef one day!

But the truth is, I don’t care if Baby Evan is any of those things. I don’t care if he’s rich or poor or single or married or owns a mansion or only owns a cardboard box. He can be a successful businessman or a starving artist. He can live in New York or LA or Paris or Sydney or my basement. None of that stuff matters (although if he does live in my basement you better believe he’ll be paying rent and mowing the lawn).

I just want him to be happy.

Happy Mother's Day to all the mamas, mama-to-bes, and future mamas!