Fatigue.

Holy crap.  I'm tired.  Like ...The idea of using my arm to lift baby A2's arms up and take his shirt off to put his pajama's on tonight is overwhelming.  Between that and still not being able to breathe when I exert myself at all ...I'm getting a whole lot of nothing done.  I also have insane restless legs syndrome and pica (there's not an ice cube in the state that's safe from me) - both of which are signs of iron deficiency.  So ..I'm half thinking there's some anemia contributing to the fatigue.  Anemia and iron deficiency would make sense to me since I came into the pregnancy straight after a year of continuous uterine bleeding and was still breastfeeding.  I'll get labs done next Wednesday, and I've upped my iron intake in the meantime.

Okay.  Can I just tell you that this 2 year old is running me ragged??  I have never known a child to have sooo much energy.  He is so much fun I can't stand it.  He's already a stand up comedian and spends most of his day trying to crack people up.  He gets into everything.  We take turns exercising the baby.  As in ..."Umm..it's your turn to run A2.  I've already done it for 2 hours."  We let him out back and he literally runs around the yard at breakneck speed until I die of exhaustion from watching him.  He's like a dog that requires a 10 mile walk before you can expect appropriate behavior out of him.  I live in Michigan which means that winter will be here soon.  I'm currently trying to figure out how to fit his trampoline into the basement so we can bounce him.  Like Tigger.  Which brings me to this point:  I have a huge yard that is beautifully fenced in.  Behind the fence is a massive field full of deer, snakes, and wild animals.  Although I feel like he's safe back there, I virtually never let him outside even for a second alone because well ..he's 2.  Anyway.  We were inside watching Dora this evening when I started this post.  Monk was out front cutting the grass and the golden child was upstairs.  I got up to pee ...came back to the living room to find no baby and no dog.  Looked everywhere.  Nothing.  Panicked.  Looked at the sliding door which was wide open.  And then to my horror, I discovered that Monk had left the gate in the back of the yard open to the field when he was cutting the grass.  A2 was strolling around in grass taller than him with our cocker spaniel tailing close behind.  I nearly died.  And then Monk nearly died an untimely death for leaving the gate open.  Holy shit.  I think I lost 14 years of my life in those 2 minutes.  I'm still trying to figure out what to do with a 2 year old that suddenly figured out how to open a door.  While I was peeing.  He should figure these things out while adequately supervised.

I'm already starting to panic ...because ohmygod ...it feels like this baby is going to be here in 2 minutes and I have not even slightly begun to prepare in any way, shape, or form.  Much less started my Christmas shopping.  And the golden child turns 16 in 2 weeks and I believe is probably expecting some sort of MTV style 16th birthday party .... and isn't going to get it.   Ayiyiyi.

I feel like I'm probably going through a normal developmental stage of adding another human being to our family ...but I'm so emotionally torn I can't even tell you which way I'm headed.  It breaks my heart that my relationship with A2 is going to change so much.  That I will come home from the hospital and my baby will suddenly have grown at least 6 feet.  I worry about how he'll handle it.  I worry about how I'll handle it.  I worry about the golden child ...and her needs getting pushed farther to the back of the line than they are now.  And my relationship with my husband ...what happens to that?  When do we make time for one another between work and 3 kids?  How can I possibly handle getting 2 to bed at the same time??  I honestly think that the first 2 were 13 years apart because seriously ...that's all I could handle.  I have no idea how to manage two very needy little people at the same time.  No idea at all.   

I read a beautiful post today @  http://sharah.wordpress.com/ and cried for nearly 2 hours afterward.  Because ...yeah.  Right there with ya, Sharah.  Right there.