Sorry I didn’t update last week! It was a concert week, which translates to busy, busy, busy. The lack of a post last week means twice as long a post today. 🙂

• Last week I had an appointment with Stephanie, and the follow-up ultrasound to make sure the placenta had moved up and away from the cervix. Happily, it has, which means I’m all clear to have my natural birth. There’s nothing else of significance to report – Noah’s heartbeat is strong (140s). I’m now going in every two weeks, so I’ll be back next week for my 32 week appointment.
• Last week I also got hit by pica cravings, which are cravings for non-food items. I had this with Aria, too, but even stronger. It is the weirdest thing. Seriously. I LOVE the smell of laundry and dishwasher detergent. I can suddenly smell people’s laundry detergent on their clothes, and it smells like it would taste good. Yep, that’s right. I just want to stand around and sniff our laundry soap, and Andy looks at me like I have two heads. I don’t blame him, cause did I mention it’s weird? I’m not even tempted to actually eat it, but I LOVE the smell. Along with it I also start craving ice and salt. Mostly ice. Thankfully it is more manageable thus far this time than with Aria – with her I HAD to have ice at least once a day, or it would drive me insane. Some studies have linked the craving to an iron deficiency, but it’s not a certain thing, and I don’t seem to have an iron deficiency, so I just deal with it.
• Aria is now walking almost all the time while we are home. She is getting pretty good at it, though I don’t usually put shoes on her here, so she’s not quite used to that yet. I should probably put them on her more often. She has also discovered she can open and reach into our top kitchen drawers. That was yesterday’s discovery. She was suspiciously silent, and when I got to the kitchen I found her sitting on the floor with an uncapped Sharpie marker. Yikes! Thankfully she hadn’t drawn on anything yet. I guess we’re going to have to lock our drawers…
• A new session of HelloMornings started yesterday. I’m already thoroughly enjoying the study of the book of John, and thus far am doing better than I did on the last challenge, when I just petered out. I feel motivated! I’ll let you know in a couple weeks if that’s still true…
• Last week was the last concert of The Phil Chorus’ 2012/13 season. We had performances on Friday and Saturday nights. I sat through the rehearsals all week, in an attempt to make sure I wasn’t too sore to make it through the concerts intact. The work we performed required us to stand and sing straight through for 50ish minutes. It was intense. I made it through Friday’s concert…by pretending to sing the last two movements. It was a great feat of will power to stay standing, pretend to sing, and control my expression while everything in me wanted to plop in my seat. 🙂 I started having extremely strong Braxton Hicks contractions and my back was suddenly killing me. I did it, and could barely move when we got done. I hobbled out to the van and went straight home to collapse, and then I begged off the Saturday concert because I knew I couldn’t (and shouldn’t) do that two days in a row. Interestingly, I did a concert at 7 months pregnant with Aria, and I didn’t have a problem, even though I was more uncomfortable all around in that pregnancy. The difference was that we didn’t sing for 50 minutes with no breaks. In that concert we were able to sit occasionally, and the movements were shorter. I guess I’ve learned what I can and can’t handle, musically speaking, at 7 months pregnant.
• I’ve been frustrated recently that I can’t keep our house clean, make dinner, get to yard work, etc. Well, I could, if I had no downtime whatsoever (and if I started attempting that now I would not only go insane, I would also cause myself an injury). Suddenly it dawned on me that I am simply doing too many things, and I need to cut something(s). I don’t know exactly what that will look like yet, but I am seriously pondering it, praying over it, and discussing it with Andy. The goals behind my staying home were that I would be here with our kids, fully present with them, and that I would take care of the house. I feel those are both suffering, and particularly the latter, since it’s the lesser priority. I don’t know why it’s taken so many months of frustration before I had the epiphany that I could change it, but there you have it.
• Last week I wrote a guest post for Homemaker Mom about how to be a friend to a new mother (hint, hint). 😉