Echoes.

The time passes for me rather quickly these days.
I’m not sure if it’s because of the chronic insomnia or the mind-numbing commercials that make their way across the tv screens during my bed rest moments of the past two months.

Today I’ve been back at work 3 days and the mixed blessings of adult conversation and paychecks come  head to head with the sheer motivation it takes to drive across town and walk out in this unholy heat that has blanketed Memphis for the past couple of months.

Baby baking is going much better.  I carry around meds that rattle when I walk – a grand total of 5 or 6 prescriptions with several doctor’s suggestions on over-the-counter medications.  I’ve lugged them all around in a knitting drawstring gift bag, an effort that makes me look both cutesy and poor as hell.
But, I’m not sick like I was.  I just simply have to avoid most foods with taste, barring the few foods that are pregnancy staples – beef jerky, pickles and the like.
Potato soup is my friend and I will eat it until I reach the bottom of the bowl and perhaps further if the soup warrants it.  McAlister’s Deli potato soup has led me through a table or two recently.  It’s delish.

And boy is this an active baby.  Moving early, moving late.  Moving where others can feel it.  I’m only 16 weeks, so this is early… and I can move him – him as a pronoun simply as a guess.  I won’t find out the sex for another few weeks… it’s perverseness of denying me enjoyment in fried foods simply has convinced me it’s a boy.  But I can move him – and must move him, for this baby and my bladder have bonded in a way that cannot be allowed to happen for the next 5 months.

I’m carrying low.  Very low it feels like, especially in comparison to carrying Abbey and every movement is slightly painful in the tender way and causes me to rush to the bathroom in the urge to pee.  The urge the may not have been there a moment before, but the bond that I mentioned struck true again and now get out of my way!  It’s my turn again.

I haven’t felt this sick 100% of the time since… 14 years ago.
Hello, pregnancy.
It’s been a long time.

My parents like to make fun of my absolutely psychotic fear of severe weather.
Not in the mean way, more in the ‘if you don’t turn off that weather radio right now I’m going to stuff it in your ears!’ kind of way.

And sometimes I understand.
I go way over the top.
And the damned this is LOUD.

But last weekend, about 1-ish in the morning, the tornado warning siren came off and I hurried to their bedroom to warn them as I do every time it happens.
Right as I reached them this hellish sounding wind hit, bringing torrential rain so loud that I jumped.  It was terrifying.

The storms continued but we were left mostly unscathed.

It wasn’t until during the week that we found out a tornado hit about a mile away.  To the southwest of us.  A tiny one – only EF-0 but a mile long path of destruction.
The wind and the rain were the remnants that hit my house.

Had that been a stronger storm I’d have never made it the 100 feet in time to warn them.  Or to reach shelter.

How sobering is that?

So while I am paranoid, and the damned radio is too loud… and I’m so aware of the limitations of the meteorologists’ abilities at night with just radar to guide them – I think I’ll continue my craziness.  And probably rudely insist that they move faster next time than the drunkenly-tired movements I inspired on Sunday.
Every second is one more chance to make it to that hallway, that basement, that bathroom.

And it matters.

What a way to make that perfectly clear to me.  In a way that the tornadoes I’ve been through haven’t.

Just realized that my blog has been set in the wrong timezone for forever. 
Meaning that if I’ve written an entry in the morning, it says it’s after 5 or so in the evening.
I was off by about… oh, lots of hours.

But it’s fixed now.
So.  Go me.
Apparently that setting button is supposed to be used for something.

Life is moving right along, which is fun.

My brother is being commissioned as an officer in the Navy later this week.  I can’t believe it.  I think it was only yesterday that I met right after his high school graduation.
The years have given him a degree and a future in the Navy. 

My sister is due to graduate with her degree in May.  Another surprise.  Not that I thought she couldn’t do it – more that I wondered if she would.  Parenting and school are hard at the same time, especially with a young one.
But even Brayden is growing so fast.  He starts preschool this year and actual kindergarten next year.
Wasn’t he born yesterday or the day before?!
My little monkey is starting school.

My best friend is having a baby.
Not right this second – these things need a little baking time, but the fact is that she’s a’bakin’ at this moment.
Another shock.
When I was younger it never occured to me that my friends having children was odd.  Mainly because it’s not, it’s biological.
But having seen how my friendships and life have changed having a child, it’s interesting to see how it affects other new parents.
You don’t lose friends, really – they evolve.
And you don’t lose the things you love in life, you just change priorities.

But it is a huge change – you long for the days when you could go to the bathroom by yourself and I can’t wait to see how wonderful a parent she is going to be.
Plus.
I like other people’s kids.

I won’t lie though.
It’s made my clock tick.
This insane little figurative device that kept its mouth shut for years is now screaming at me.
And voicing the words ‘either a puppy or baby!’ to my husband probably wouldn’t give me the answer I would expect.
He’s all for babies.

The sun has been shining outside for the majority of this month and it makes me crazy to be outside.
The pollen levels are high, my grey car has turned a dingy green-yellow, and my eyes are swelling shut but I can’t wait for the work day to end so I can once again be in that happy sunshine.

I told you I was crazy.

Weight Watchers is going well.  I’m smaller and smaller.  I’m still huge, but smaller for me and I’ll take it.
As long as my husband recognizes it when I see him Thursday.
I’ve only provided him with 4 billion hints.
I think he’ll get the picture.

I’ve a grin on my face and the clock is ticking by quickly.
This is turning out to be a great day.

I really hate the sunshine today.
Not that I’m dying for doom and gloom, but a little less brightness would be welcomed for a spell.
My eyes hurt.

Sometimes you sleep.
And then you wake up.
And you trudge to work with a half-awake brain.

And other times.
Like on Sunday night and Monday.
It snows.
Eventually almost 8 inches…
But that was during my naptime.
And I didn’t photograph anything after that.

Where I live this means no travelling – no one can get up or down the hills safely to go anywhere.
It means playing with Alchemy outside – she misses the crazy Minnesota snow and went nuts when she saw the white stuff.

And for this much snow to fall in Mississippi, well, it HAS to mean anything is possible, because I don’t think this has happened in the 30 years I’ve lived here…

So, please. PLEASE let anything be possible – most especially the good things.

(more photos on my Flickr site… these are from le iPhone.)

It’s wedding day once again in the Sparks Labello household and so the running around has commenced.

Okay.
It’s not MY wedding and that’s all that matters.

These kids are getting married at 18… the same age my parents got married. Which really makes me wonder what the HELL they are thinking.
Not that I’m against young marriages.
I just think they’re fucking retarded.

I think it must come with the age. MY age. And the fact that I’m the parent of a child only 5 years younger.
And I’d lock her in a kennel if she thought of doing something so totally life-altering and idiotic.