Another one?!?! Really?!?

So now that I'm done ranting on predisposed judgements I'll get back to dishing on my personal life. I truly don't feel it's very exciting but many (some, a small few, probably no one) people may beg to differ. So with that being said my husband and I found out that we're expecting...AGAIN. This will be our 5th child. The baby will be due in February which will be nice because I won't have to endure my fattest months in the horrible Arizona heat. When the baby is born Avery (my oldest) will be a few months shy of turning 9, Syd will be 7, Colby will be 4 1/2, and Rusty will almost be 3. Of course the idea of completely starting over exhausts me just in thought but I always wanted a large family. I was lucky enough to find a partner that I could trick into having a bunch of kids with and now he's stuck with us.

Having a baby is not capricous to us. For one, I have to have another c-section and that really is a lot to deal with. When I had Rusty (besides all the other awful things that were happening in our lives) the incision to my c-section reopened. I had an extra long recovery and my husband had to "pack" my incision every night until it completely healed. I also have high risk pregnancies. This will actually be my 9th pregnancy. That being said when I look at my kids and I see them enjoy everything I desperately wanted as a child I can't help but be thrilled to expand our brood. I truly believe God believes enough in me that he's only going to give me what I can handle. Sometimes though I think he gets confused and gives me a hell of a lot of crap when I'm already drowning, hopefully this is not the case.

Overall I'm excited. I know this will be hard but what hasn't been? When I got pregnant with Rusty I thought everything in my life was on track. We owned a home, my husband had a good job, the kids were healthy, everything seemed perfect. When Rusty was born we lost our home, my husband lost his job, I lost 2 loved ones, I had surgery complications, I had postpartum psychosis, and Colby was diagnosed with Apraxia. We survived. We made it through. We'll make it through this and one day when it's all said and done I'll only remember the good times, good times and sleep depravation, but mostly good times.

Cleaning

I'll be perfectly honest in admitting that I was a neurotic, anal-retentive cleaning freak before children. Even after I had Avery and Syd I would find myself personally washing EVERY toy. I felt a deep sense of accomplishment and pride when the barbie clothes were placed in 1 bucket and barbie shoes and household items in other buckets. I had closets color coordinated and shoes lined in perfect rows. I did have toy boxes but only for "select" toys. Rooms with clutter were overwhelming to me and I even found myself not being able to get a good nights rest if I knew things were disorganized (it's like they were taunting me). This is truly a life long compulsion. I was 6 when I found my true love of cleaning and organizing I would go home after school just to clean. When I was a 10 we had a maid and I followed her around cleaning because I just didn't feel she did good enough (I do this to my husband sometimes, he's not a fan).

This all changed one day. I woke up and realized I'm in a losing battle. By no means am I saying I now have gone to the opposite end and live in a pig sty, but I think if every toy is off the ground and into the bucket then the room is clean. If the clothes have left the clean pile in my room and made their way into each childs room then we're good. If the beds aren't made who cares. I still try very hard to be that person who cleans all the time, or lines all the food in order in the fridge but alas I'm outnumbered. I have 4 (5 if you include my husband) children who don't care, they don't care if R2D2 is in the Star Wars bucket or if my little pony is in the corral, as long as they can swim and play and jump on their beds then the house is awesome. I still have select things that are just mine though, my own little neurotic things that they can't mess up. I have notebooks upon notebooks of school info and magazine articles. People laugh at me when they see my books but they're my calm in the storm, perfectly organized calm. Every Mom needs a little calm in the storm.