Somehow three years have gone by since Blue died. He was born August 10, 2011. Two days after he died. No one remembered his birthday this year, and I think I almost forgot, too. Of course that's not really true. But August 8 went by without my really realizing it, and on August 9 I remembered that the next day was Blue's birthday. On August 10 I woke up and immediately started thinking about him, about things that happened that day three years ago, and following, and I cried loud and hard for the first time in a long time. I still miss him so much. I still can't believe how much I can miss someone who was never really here.
And then there's the other three...the third baby inside of me that makes me smile everyday. This baby is so active, more active than Sprout. I see Sprout with his boundless energy now at almost 2 and hope that Three cannot actually be more active at that age! That might put the kibash on having another kid. The third/fourth child that I am already planning, so I am hoping this one is a boy because then I won't have to convince Mr. E to have another. I also think Sprout would like a brother. Then again, I also think it might be wise to just go one at a time here. So a girl would be nice. I love the feeling that either way I do not care, since with Sprout I might have had a hard time with a girl instead of another boy. Although I guess I do care, if I want a boy so that I can have another kid. It would be nice and easy to have two boys born in the same month though. Then we could aim for a spring/summer baby for our girl. Though after three boys, would the odds of a girl still be 50/50? Could we time intercourse? Douche or not douche with household products or whatever?
This pregnancy has been so much less stressful than the last. I am actually enjoying being pregnant, though I have to admit I am not really enjoying being pregnant while parenting a toddler. This shit is exhausting! On top of that, for the past week I have had a cold, with a sore throat and terrible cough. I was waking up at least 5 times per night for a few nights. I am finally on the mend and starting to feel "normal" again--whatever that means at 32 weeks pregnant, with an active toddler, with an underpaying job that I now hate, and with a moldy house that will presumably need a lot of money to fix. Seriously, why do people buy houses? Why did I do this? And why do houses have so many issues when you actually own them, but seemingly none when you only rent them? Once we get the recommended repairs report on the house, we will be talking to a real estate lawyer about the never-any-water-in-the-basement "disclosure" made by the previous homeowners, who were here for 8-9 years. All I know about them is all the ridiculousness we inherited here, and that they moved down the street to the part of the neighborhood with the huge new homes. Today we also received a piece of mail addressed to their "family trust" that was established in 2001. Very. Interesting. So you sell me a mouse-infested, moldy house with probably literally rotting walls, after you cheaped-out some renovations and, for example, called the laminate cabinet doors over the original 1970 cabinets "new maple cabinets," you never cleaned the filthy garage, never refinished floors that had pockmarks and even a decal stuck to them, and never noticed there was water in the basement but somehow it was there the DAY AFTER WE CLOSED...and you have a family fucking trust?
Can you tell I am a LITTLE stressed out about this house situation? And a LOT angry? And feeling somewhat naive, definitely disappointed, that I bought a moldy house. I knew about mold, and I can smell everything. But I never smelled the mold here until we moved in. The house inspector mentioned that the basement crawl space under the house, where there is just a dirt floor with the foundation around it, had high levels of moisture and some evidence of deterioration and "minor" mold. I just thought every basement in Pennsylvania had some "minor" "moisture issues." Basing my opinion on the other houses we were looking at, it was true. But as I was recently told by the construction defect lawyer that I actually do work for (again, what was I thinking here?)--where there is smoke there is fire. So anyway...we are still waiting for the repairs report and I think the waiting is the hardest part because of the uncertainty. I am trying to focus on the fact that we have a beautiful-looking house, with tons of windows, with a great back yard and a fence that actually isn't falling apart, and a great layout, and a two-car attached garage, and four great bedrooms, and lovely wood floors (because I had them refinished) in the entire house except the bathrooms, and a neighborhood with other beautiful houses and big old trees and shade and a park a block away with a playground and basketball and tennis courts and a huge resident red-tailed hawk that I also love. I just wish we had tons of money to fix all the stuff we want to fix, and clean all the stuff we want to clean (without doing it ourselves), and then this wouldn't be so bad after all. Should I open the family trust statement?
The silver lining right now is that in this pregnancy...I just saw the OB on Tuesday and apparently...I did not gain any weight over the past 4 weeks. Which the nurse said is fine and I agree. But ya know, just in case, I just had two Magnum infinity chocolate bars, and I am considering having a third. (Coming full circle with the title of this post--three years, three babies, three ice cream bars.) Yeah, the name of a frickin' ice cream bar is Magnum Infinity. I'll let you decide what you think that name is better suited for.
