Hormonal Overload

**Warning: This woman can go from screaming to crying (and possibly back to screaming) in 5 seconds flat. You could try to be nice, helpful and considerate, but I'd advise you just stay away.**

I feel like I should be wearing some sort of banner that says this to give everyone around me a fair warning. It's as if I have about four different people living inside me right now, and you never know which one is going to appear. "Normal" Nicole is around for most of the time (I think), but then out of nowhere, *boom* here comes "Crazy" Nicole. She's been known to get irritated over the smallest things and flip out. What's worse is I know when I'm being crazy, and "Normal" Nicole is in there trying to restrain the crazy, but she's much stronger and I just can't seem to fight her.

In the span of about an hour this morning I managed to laugh, scream and cry all before leaving the house.

Bailey got new panties a couple of weeks ago and still gets so excited every morning when she gets to wear a pair of the new ones. She always makes me laugh when she squeals with delight over the smallest things (wouldn't it be nice if we are all so easily overjoyed?).

Then I walked into the kitchen and realized that Nick had forgotten to take the trash out. Seriously? There were two full bags sitting in the floor that had also never been taken out to the can, and that wasn't enough of a reminder? Really, I love this man, but sometimes...well, let's just say I wasn't happy. Then I had to get the roast going for dinner tonight since I didn't do everything last night (admittedly, my own fault) and still get ready for work. As Bailey and I were ready to leave, I told her to stay inside while I took all the trash down. I made sure to explain to her that I wasn't going to leave without her (she's going through a terrible phase where she's afraid of being left alone...I did this too as a child!). When I came back in she was crying because she thought I had left. I kind of lost it and raised my voice (okay, maybe screamed),

when I had no reason to. No matter how irrational, this is a real fear for her. It doesn't matter how many times we tell her that no one is ever going to leave her, she still has this fear. I know she will outgrow it, I did, and until then we just have to keep reassuring her.

This would be when I cried.

I just hugged her and apologized and we talked again about how no one would ever go off and leave her by herself.

And now I'm sitting at work feeling emotionally drained and praying that this day goes by fast so I can go home and be with my family; who thankfully love me for me, even when I'm crazy hormonal.

Catching Up

Well, even though I haven't been keeping up with my own posts, I have been following along with all my regular blogs. I'm finally starting to feel like a normal human being again, and thought it was time to get back into the swing of things. I've got several posts that need to be written, but I'll just use this one as a sort of catch up from what's been going on lately.

1. My doctor gave me Zofran, which changed my life! Okay, you might think that sounds a little dramatic, but seriously, when you're getting sick all the time, sometimes 4 times a day, and you find something that stops this, it seems like nothing short of a miracle. I still get sick first thing in the morning, and there doesn't seem to be any end in sight to that.

2. All Bailey talks about is people having babies in their bellies. She doesn't have imaginary friends, she has imaginary Disney princesses that come everywhere with us. Cinderella really likes to go to the park with us. But sometimes she can't play because she has a baby in her belly.

3. Bailey herself now has three babies in her belly. Thumbelina, Tinkerbell and the last one always gets a different name. She told me she is going to burp them out when they get big enough.

4. Even though I'm not feeling nauseous all day anymore, food still never sounds good. There's never anything I just crave. I really don't even like to watch Food Network anymore because it's hard to look at all that food...and that used to be about all I watched!

5. I feel almost certain that this little babe is a boy. Really just because this pregnancy is so different than it was with Bailey. I feel like I've not even been pregnant before because nothing is the same this time around. We'll find out the sex of the baby on October 22nd!

6. Nick and I just realized the down side to the "perfect planning" of this baby. I'm due March 25th. His soccer season starts about 2 weeks before that and he'll still be taking grad classes at EKU. If he isn't able to take online courses that semester, it will mean a guaranteed 4 nights of the week he will be gone, possibly until very late. While it's a little overwhelming to think about caring for two little ones from 6:30 am until possibly 10:00 pm by myself, I figure it will kind of be sink or swim...hopefully I'm a swimmer!

7. Bailey will start swim lessons on October 23rd and we're all very excited!

8. I think we've decided on cloth diapering this baby, much more reading and research to do still.

9. I was finally brave enough to bring up the discussion of my maternity leave with my boss. While she is a great woman, she is also a workaholic, and I was afraid she would want me to come back right away. I told her I would like 12 weeks off (which is what I had with Bailey) but essentially I would have the first 6 off completely, and then would do most of my work from home the last 6. She seemed pretty open to the idea, and we're going to talk again later about ironing out the details.

10. Speaking of maternity leave, this time around, I will have no income while I'm off!! Last time I was able to draw short term disability for 6 weeks and then I took 6 weeks with no pay. This time I'm working for an individual instead of a company, and there are no benefits like that. Which means I need to save, save, save! I'm trying to save up what I would normally make so I can just sort of pay myself each week like would normally happen. Which means...I need to sell some houses!! I've got some great listings right now, and hopefully someone will buy them! I will be getting paid for the hours I work during that second 6 week period, but it still won't be 40 hours a week.

11. We have a real live pumpkin vine growing in our front yard, with a little orange pumpkin! More on that to come later.

12. We're all making a conscious effort to eat healthier at home. Bailey has been a champ at eating her veggies lately. Last night she ate her whole little bowl of salad! She actually chose to finish that over eating all of her spaghetti. She told me the baby spinach leaves were her favorite!