The kids were AMAZING during all four of our flights. We had a lay-over in Denver for both legs of our journey. I had major concerns about sitting in a tiny, enclosed space with an always-moving, feisty five year old and a no-attention-span, defiant two year old for hours on end. But, like I said, they were great. Jacob kept busy coloring and playing on his tablet and Ryan sat patiently on my lap eating snacks and dozing on and off. There was no crying. No fighting. No whining. No running wildly up and down the aisles. It was like they weren't even my kids! Other children did not fare so well and cried or screamed for most of our flights (I felt very badly for those parents because that just as easily could have been me consoling and pulling my hair out). But my kids, were uncharacteristically angelic (if you ignore the multiple hours they spent riding moving sidewalks back and forth at all the airports we passed through).
As soon as we pulled up to the house, I lifted a sleeping Jacob from his car seat and carried him to the house. Five minutes later, I felt a pinching in my back and an hour later I was doubled over in pain. I had thrown my back out. AGAIN! I threw my back out three weeks earlier after doing squats at the gym. These past three days have been excruciating. I went home from work early the first two days because sitting, standing, walking, moving, resulted in pangs of intense, focuses pain in my lower back. Even just turning my head to look over my shoulder while driving or trying to get out of my car leaves me crying like a baby. This is the fourth time I've thrown out my back since Ryan was born two years ago. I'm pretty sure it's related to my separated abdomen muscles. Thanks children for destroying my body for life!
But as much as they have completely destroyed my back (and my front- hello stretchmarks), they are incredibly cute and lovable. I guess they are worth it in the end :)
Riding bikes at a skate park:
The boys in their wedding tuxes:
Holding my little man:
Thursday morning, I had my first ultrasound for baby #3. Up to that point, I had been having a very hard time being excited about this pregnancy. I hate being pregnant. I am a miserable pregnant person. I guess the constant all day sickness doesn't help much. For the past five weeks, I've been a constant string of endless complaints (the nausea, the throwing out of the back (two times), the other unpleasant things that shall remain un-named, etc). Getting my butt out of bed at 5:45am and heading off to work is very challenging when your insides feel like they are constantly churning. But then, I lay down on the medical table and saw the magical image of a sweet little gummy bear appear on the sonogram screen. The baby's heart was beating so fast. I could make out little arm and leg buds wiggling all over and I saw the distinct image of a tiny little person.
Even though I barely knew this little human inside me and I had been having a hard time getting excited about another pregnancy, I felt an amazing and uncontrollable urge to protect that tiny little person. I felt as strongly that that baby was part of me, a member of our clan, as I did with any other member of my family. I know this is controversial and I am often in the minority on this issue and many people don't agree with me, but I simply don't care. As I sat there and watched the little heart beat and the little arm buds wave around, I simply could not fathom how any doctor would purposely kill a baby, no matter how small, no matter how vulnerable. It amazes me how human-like even an eight week old baby looks. This baby was undoubtedly a person. This is not religious dogma. This is cold, hard science. There for the seeing and there for the hearing (heartbeat). While I understand the political policies behind allowing abortion, it is something I can never accept or agree with. It sickens me to live in a society where people refuse to eat meat because they are worried about animal cruelty, and yet they support and perpetuate acts of the most extreme cruelty against babies.
Stepping down from my soap box (sorry), I left the imaging center a little bit more excited about the future and also convinced this baby is a girl. I honestly don't care either way. I just have an unexplainably strong sense that we will be picking out girl names in two more months.
Although this work week has been short, it's been extremely full! I was roped in to helping on an emergency, last minute project which required 12 hours of legal research on an obscure issue. I now know more than I ever want to about the Fair Labor Standards Act (yuk!). Next week I get to help present the results of my research to a board of commissioners (the people I need to convince to hire me full time in a permanent position).
One of my bosses also informed me that she wants me to do some cross-training so that I can get more trials and court experience under my belt. In this effort, in the next couple weeks I will be helping prosecutors with some big-ish criminal cases and even participate in some criminal trials. I'm extremely nervous but very excited. Prosecuting criminal cases is something I've always wanted to try. I have always had an inkling that I would enjoy it, so I'm excited to find out if that is true. The thing I love about practicing law is that there is never a shortage of experiences which require you to go beyond your comfort zone and grow as both a person and an attorney. I always dread these experiences and look forward to them at the same time. I know that at the end of the terrifying experience I will be a much more experienced and skilled person. But getting to that point is definitely not easy!
Now if I can just shake this all-day sickness.....barf!
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