The Luckiest No Matter What!

During these three pregnancies, I've been competing for fan fair, paparazzi exposure, press coverage, and general cultural obsession with Kate Middleton,  Her Royal Highness  the  Duchess  of Cambridge. Although my pregnancies have produced many similarities and many differences, one constant has been that this gal has been right on my tail every.single.time.  Our stories and timeline have been corresponding all the way back before either one of us had any children...  I remember, as I was struggling with infertility, reading headlines in the gossip magazines about Kate and William and when they were going to have kids.  Is she pregnant?  Does she have reproductive issues?  Magazines were speculating a lot, because they had been married for about one minute without producing any children (insert eye roll).  There were a lot of rumors published about her having issues getting pregnant.   I remember thinking, Geez....

Well, readers, hell has officially froze over I think.  The first reason I believe this to be true is because it is literally frozen here: we've been in a winter storm warning in April that's been bringing wind, snow, sleet, and mostly ice.  I was up in the middle of the night, around 3:30am, which is my new awake time, listening to the freezing rain and watching Friends while the baby kicked me.  I don't even understand why this storm is called a winter storm since it is NO LONGER WINTER.  Get with the program, mother nature!  The other reason hell has froze over around here is because my children slept until 7:00am this morning!  SEVEN A.M.  If you've read any of my blogs about sleeping lately, you know that is NOT normal, for Nolan and Judah anyway.  In fact, the last time the two of them slept until 7:00 was probably a year ago? They've only slept until 8:00 once in their entire almost five years of life.  When Judah came waltzing into ...

I have three boys. I don't have any daughters. This is my truth.  I am outnumbered- plain and simple. Josh and I have both been intentional about trying NOT to make our house one giant man cave.  We've been very gender neutral with everything we've exposed the boys to, supported and facilitated whatever activities the boys wanted to try, whatever toys or games they might want to have in the house and are very, VERY careful not to talk about toys, games, movies, books, or hobbies being "boy stuff" or "girl stuff." Regardless of all that, my boys have a lot of qualities that make them very stereotypically... well.. manly. In addition, I happen to have a lot of qualities that make me very stereotypically... well... girly. My favorite thing about all three of my boys is how game they are to try and learn about and experience just about anything.  They are really open- open minds, open hearts and I have really enjoyed that. What that means is that...

I have been blessed to know Josh since the first day of 8th grade.  While I did not realize that meeting him in Mr. Martin's 1st hour math class would be the start to actually quite a love story, looking back, it is incredible how woven together the two of us has become.  I have now known Josh for over twenty years, first kissed him eighteen years ago, have been dating him for fourteen years, and married to him for over ten.   After meeting each other, we spent the rest of middle school being good friends- liking to be around one another, getting to know each other and making each other laugh... a lot!  Well, actually Josh spent it making ME laugh a whole lot.    Our first picture together- signing each other's yearbooks at the end of 8th grade- 1998 We spent high school with a lot of back and forth, back and forth- trying to figure out how to make our friendship work as more than that.  Thankfully, as we would date and stop dating, da...

For basically this entire pregnancy, I've been pretty sure this baby is a boy.  I'm not sure if it's because I swear I heard an ultrasound tech say, "Oh!  Look at HIS big hands!" Or if it's because the baby's kidneys have been monitored because they've been dilated (something much more common in boys than girls) or if it's because that's all I know or if I've got mother's intuition (I have correctly predicted the gender of all three of my boys)... maybe a combination... I don't know.   Honestly, I also think I'm trying to prepare to allow myself to grieve never having a girl.  Although I am truly at peace if a girl is not in my future; I LOVE and adore my boys and being a #boymom, but I know there will be times I will feel like I'm missing out.  I think it's natural to feel that way from time to time.  I imagine lots of people, when planning their future children in their heads, picture both genders.  There are certainl...

This is a well-loved children's story of a boy named Duncan who received letters from all the crayons in his box.  Some crayons were proud of their work, others frustrated and tired, some begging to be used more.  The yellow and orange crayons aren't speaking to each other because they both feel they should be the color of the sun.  It's a cute book about perspective and how they all combine, together, uniquely, to make something beautiful.  This book has been loved by both my boys and my sixth graders. One of the crayons, the purple crayon, really speaks to me.  Not only has purple been my favorite color for my entire life, but this purple crayon sounds a lot like me... While Purple Crayon can appreciate the creativity of Duncan, it cannot deal with the inevitable disorder that a young person coloring brings.  Like the purple crayon, I love my boys' imagination, zest for life and exploring, desire to touch, to feel, to experience, and I apprec...

End of October: 13 weeks pregnant with #HundtBaby4 In case it hasn't been made obvious enough, you can probably tell I might not be the easiest pregnant person to live with.  Especially during first trimester (or let's be honest, basically until a baby continually gives me reassurance with kicks or actually let's be REALLY honest, until the baby is in my arms), I am a DI-SAS-TER.  #MyCrazy is in full swing during this time. You can go back through old blogs while I was pregnant with Nolan and Judah and also when I was pregnant with Carter to see the pattern- losing sleep, checking to see if I'm bleeding a million times a day, constantly worrying, etc.   In October, I hit a really rough patch- mentally.  I had my 12 week appointment to which I did not score an ultrasound (even though I tried and actually also cried) and I was going to have to go another four weeks until I was next given any reassurance that things were okay.  That feels like ETERNITY T...