The best compliment you can get on the web is an email or comment from someone saying that something you wrote touched their heart. That happened today. A girl named Katie contacted me to tell me she had re-posted something I wrote and it literally made my day. I haven’t been the best blogger lately. I used to love posting because I felt as though I had something to say or a story to tell. Lately that hasn’t been the case. I was talking with my mom recently and she said that she felt my blog was a bit bipolar. It used to be witty, and sometimes still is, but now it is just really reflective. She asked what changed but in the same breath commented that the addition of Eli really appeared to have changed me. I nodded in silent agreement.

Baby #3 did me in. I mean really. A lot of people talk about what it is like to add a second child or a third or fourth. I asked everyone I knew with 3 kids what the transition was like.  Sometimes they said it was no different than having 2 kids. Sometimes they said it was exponentially harder. I sensed that for me it was going to be the latter and I readied myself for the onslaught. God was gracious and gave me a baby that made the transition easier than it could have been but I will be honest – 3 has been really different. And hard. I’m sorry for the brutal honesty and if you are preggo with baby #3 right now, stop reading. I’m kidding. It’s not that bad. Well, not really.

I love Elijah. More than I’ve loved any baby. Not to say I didn’t love my others but what I mean is that I love him as a “baby”. I rushed through the baby stage with Isaac and Joshua. Barely taking time to think until they were walking and yelling “Mama” with their mouths full of cheerios. Eli is different, I am immersed in his “babyness.” I love it because I know that this is it for me. Drinking in his infancy has calmed me and allowed me to reflect on how quick this parade of childhood goes.

Okay, that said….I will be honest and say there are days when the weight of being responsible for 3 small children and a full time job and a marriage make me feel like I might crumble. I start at 6am and fall into bed at 9pm, feeling exhausted and a little sad. I have heard many people say that the hardest time in a woman’s life is when she has children under the age of 6. I think is couldn’t be more true. But when you add to that a woman who doesn’t really know who she is and is still searching for her purpose, you have a real problem.

So, if you sense a difference in my writing, well there is. I am in a learning stage. I am trying to figure out how I got to be 33 years old with 3 kids and yet still feel like I’m really just an overgrown teenager waiting for real life to start. I have a feeling though that I am not alone.

I sense desperation in some of my fellow mommy’s eyes. I see the longing for a goal and purpose beyond diapers and midnight feedings, playgroups and school drop-off lines. If you have stumbled onto this blog and feel just a little of what I’ve described then you are in the right place. Let’s find out together how to feel whole when little parts of you are walking around asking for cereal and string cheese and someone to wipe their bottom.

For my friends that come here for my ridiculous sense of humor or tips on beauty products, I promise it hasn’t been shelved…I’m still hilarious (just ask me) and I still love make-up.  Bare with me though, after 9 months of growing a baby, it appears that the next stage includes some emotional growth that was much needed.

I am sure over time there will be a million posts about my three boys. However, as I begin this journey of being a mother of three I can’t help  but share some of the things I’ve experienced so far.

First of all, when pregnant with a boy for the 3rd time, you are more likely to get condolences than congratulations. Men who would comment on my pregnancy, and then discover I was pregnant with another boy would inevitably say things like:

I’m one of three boys, my poor mother.

I’m one of four boys, my mom was a trooper.

I’m one of two boys, my mom is glad we are out of the house.

I’m one of several boys, my mom is trained in martial arts.

Okay so not really the last one but I imagine that karate would be a useful skill for me to acquire in the next few years. It would help with deflecting flying Buzz Lightyear toys and legos. If any of you are wondering what it is like to be a mother to so many boys, I can only say that I don’t really know yet. Eli is still at that androgynous baby stage (as evidenced by the MANY, “she is so cute” comments at Target and the mall). He isn’t really all boy yet, just a sweet, smiling little bug that eats poops and sleeps….hmmm, maybe he is all boy.

“Boydom” is in full swing with Joshua and Isaac though. They have taken to wrestling and fighting a good portion of the time they are together. Isaac is my pacifist, not really down with all of the physicality that Joshua exudes. Like a good dog would do, he takes several punches from the smaller pup before he growls. Joshie is ALL BOY. Often times after people have been around him for a period of time I get comments like:

Wow, he sure is full of energy!

That kid never stops!

Josh is a firecracker!

These things are all spanish for – holy sh%t, how do you do it?  The answer is, I have learned the fine art of “tuning him out.” Joshie talks nonstop and is always getting into something he shouldn’t. Often during the day I will hear the vaccum go on or the pump for the air mattress. He is obsessed with things that make noise. I know that if he is “vaccuming” he at least isn’t pestering Isaac. Unfortunately though, while Isaac may not be the first to throw a punch, he is incredibly loud. You take his booming voice plus Joshie’s daily vaccuming session and….The  level of noise in our house is maybe only rivaled by the cast of Jersey Shore but I am pretty sure there is just as much testosterone and fist bumping going on here.

As I settle in with my three sons I can offer the following observation – I am sure that my life over the next few years will in some ways resemble Lord of the Flies. You know, a bunch of boys on an island (our house) trying to kill their leader (me and Kevin). So glad I was forced to read that book and understand the boy mentality. Anyone know where I can get a conch shell?

I didn’t feel well all weekend, once again I knew I had done too much. There was so much to do though and time was running out. Monday night I went to bed early and was awakened several times with contractions too strong to just ignore. I also was checking my phone repeatedly for updates on my best friends labor – she was at the hospital and awaiting the arrival of her third child, a baby girl.

By about 2 AM everything had calmed down and I was back to sleep. Hours later I was at work and trying desperately to concentrate, I noticed a lot of Braxton Hicks contractions and again, that I was generally  not feeling well. By 10 Am I had called my OB’s office and made an appointment for later that afternoon. By 12 noon, I had called and asked to come in ASAP. Sometime around 1Pm, my doctor checked me and said that I was surprisingly at a “2″ and about 50% effaced and that that baby’s head was really low. She decided to send me to the hospital for monitoring to see how often the contractions were coming.

All of this would have been really exciting, except…I was only 34 weeks.

After an hour on the monitor at the hospital and contractions 3 minutes apart, my doctor admitted me for preterm labor. I was really scared and stressed out. I didn’t want to give birth at 34 weeks. I knew it wouldn’t be catastrophic but it wasn’t ideal for the baby. He needed to “cook” for at least 3 more weeks.

Once admitted, I made a lot of phone calls and let everyone know what was going on. Once admitted I was given a pill that is supposed to stop labor and a healthy dose of IV fluids. By 10 pm that night, contractions were still regular and they decided a I needed an IV medicine called magnesium sulfate. For those of you not familiar….mag sulfate is pretty much the Devil’s cocktail. It makes you feel hot, tired and like your limbs weigh 100 lbs each. You can’t get comfortable and you are in total misery.

 By midnight that night, a nurse was comforting me as I cried and proceeded to let my emotions get the best of me. I realized how emotionally unprepared I was to have Elijah at all, let alone 6 weeks early. We had so much going on, we had just put an offer on a house and life was just too full to really think about adding another person to the mix. But here I was, faced with the prospect of an early baby with possible complications and a guaranteed stay in the NICU.

By morning the contractions had slowed and I had not made any more progression toward delivery. They decided to let me go home that evening but I was to be on bed rest for the next 4 days until my next appointment. I was thankful to be going home.

Once home, I realized I had some emotional preparation to do for baby Elijah and I needed to start taking better care of myself. Over the next three weeks I would have multiple sleepless nights from contractions and I was generally very uncomfortable but baby Eli stayed in place which was the goal.

I stopped working at 37 weeks and it wasn’t a minute too soon. I spent the next week preparing for baby, taking naps and spending time with Isaac and Joshua. By week 38 I was getting anxious to not be pregnant anymore – all of the false labor was extremely exhausting and I was starting to swell really bad.

The week I went into labor, I had a doctor appoint on Monday and she “stripped my membranes”. Seriously let’s just not talk about that. “Ouch” and “ick”, should be enough explanation. I was convinced I would go into labor later that day, all of the signs were there. Tuesday morning I woke up, still pregnant and cried. I had lost all patience with pregnancy and became a quintessential pregnant lady – hormonal and weepy. By Wednesday morning I was a flat out crazy person. I had no patience with anyone. Period. Joshua was not helping the matter by being such a pill that I actually had him stay home from pre school for a little mommy time because the day before I got a note from his teacher saying he was biting his friends and being generally ill behaved.

Around 11 am I decided to take him to the park. On the way there, this lady with  a stroller was talking on phone in the middle of the street. No joke, the middle. I waited patiently. Then I started to get mad, who stands in the middle of the street, on the phone with a stroller? I decided that honking might scare the baby and she was oblivious to my presence so I figured that turning around was the best option because I could get to the park another way. As I threw it into reverse to begin what was going to be a three point turn, I forgot I was on a hill. What happens next is just plain unfortunate.

The big giant mom car that I drive decided that going on reverse on a hill required my tires to peel out. I swear I wasn’t going fast. The look on cell phone lady’s face when I peeled out just mere feet from her and her baby was priceless. She looks up, and gives me this look of sheer panic that I am going to go all Dukes of Hazard and try to jump her and the stroller with my  1 ton hot rod. She then cusses me out. At this point my patience is totally depleted and it seemed like flipping her off was my best response.

So, after giving her the bird and finishing my 3 point turn, I head to the park. I park, get Joshie out and head to the swing set. Guess who was also on her way to the park (and STILL ON HER CELL PHONE?) I decide that it is too late to go to another park and that I just have to face her.

Five steps later, I feel as though I’ve wet my pants. Then I laugh because my first thought was “cell phone lady better not think I’m so scared of her that I peed my pants, cause I will totally fight her.” I had read someplace that a sign of impending labor is irritability…..

Joshua is oblivious to my wet pants and as I chase after him, I continue to loose more fluid (and dignity). I finally catch up with him, bribe him with Halloween candy, and head for the car. I called Kevin and everyone else that needed to know and went home to get ready for the trip to the hospital. The doctor said for me to come in right away, that with my incident of preterm labor, it was likely I would go very quickly through labor since my body was already prepared.

That would be the first of many assumptions that proved to be incorrect in the next few hours. Here is a picture I took 5 minutes before we left for the hospital….

There is now a little newborn crying so I have to go. More later on what happened at the hospital, including the Jamaican nurse and how I managed to kick my doctor out of the room in the middle of labor.

I read in my baby book that Week 33 involves some sort of growth spurt for my little pumpkin. If you look back on Week 31, you’ll see I went from pregnant! to PREGNANT! I will say that while I am getting lots of comments about looking “really ready” this week has brought some good things. I am finally starting to feel like my heart is ready for baby Elijah. I have had tons of dreams about him and I can’t wait to see what he looks like. Also, given my history of big babies and my current size, if Eli isn’t at least an 8 or 9 pounder…I got a lot of explaining to do (involving entire containers of ice cream).

The nesting has begun and I have been organizing and cooking. To be sure, I have yet to purchase a single baby item or put any of the borrowed/donated baby items I have received into any sort of organized form – but the rest of the house is getting ready for baby. I will get started on that part after my shower next week.

Note to you ladies who swear you are “done” having babies. Unless you have done something surgical to ensure that…don’t give away all of your baby stuff. The minute you do, two pink lines are going to show up on a home pregnancy test…guaranteed.

 When our first son was born, I was worried how the two rowdy beagles we had at the time would adjust. I actually spent real emotional energy thinking about this in the months before I delivered. I did research on introducing the baby to the dogs and I spent more minutes than I would like to admit thinking about how I could possibly have room in my heart for both the baby and the dogs. The dogs went on vacation with us, they slept with us, we had framed pictures of them around the house and on our computer screensavers. When other people told stories about what cute things their kids did, I threw in anecdotes about my beagles. Yes, I was that person. Needless to say, about 10 seconds in to holding Isaac for the first time, those dogs moved to a different corner of my heart. I still loved them but it wasn’t the same.

The night before our second son was born, I went in to his sweetly prepared nursery and cried my eyes out. I couldn’t imagine how I could love a baby as much as or more than I loved our firstborn. I couldn’t fathom how my heart would have room for this next child. I spent an incredible amount of my pregnancy with Joshua researching the addition of a sibling to the family dynamic. I read stories to Isaac in preparation for Joshua’s homecoming. I thought I was prepared, until the night before when it hit me that everything was about to change. I just broke down. Memories of my introduction to motherhood and how it felt to hold my first baby were flooding into my brain. How could a second child compare? How could I feel as attached to this baby as I did to the precious child sleeping in the next room over that taught me how to be a mother?

The very next evening, as Joshua came into this world and my heart did not split in half but instead grew exponentially, I understood.  When Isaac came to the hospital to meet his brother, he immediately began referring to him as “my Joshie.” Nothing could have been sweeter.

Here I am, 8 weeks or so from adding a third son to our family. You would think by now I would understand that worrying about how it is all going to work out is for not. Yet, that is just what I am doing. Once again, I cannot wrap my brain around having enough love for another child. I can’t picture him yet or feel his chubby hand in mine. I can’t see a clear picture of what it will be like to have three sons and love them all so intensely.  However, I know that it is going to happen. Sometime in the very near future, my heart will once again grow exponentially and make room for Elijah Harris. I am sure I will sit in that hospital room, staring into his eyes and wondering how our family would ever have been complete without him.

PS – read something today about having children that just blew me away, once again Amber nailed it. Go see for yourself.

On any given day, my life is filled with the following “noises”

• Joshua, upon waking, singing “little rabbit in the woods” and taking much time to emphasize the part about the hunter shooting him dead, ending with a lovely staccato note on “abide”
•  Isaac telling me that something isn’t safe
• Isaac telling Joshua that something isn’t safe
• Joshua telling Isaac that he is “weally, weally angwy wiff him”
• Joshua asking if he can “cozy me”
• Isaac telling me a joke, like this morning’s – “Hey Mom, what do you call two spiders who just got married?” …”Newly Webs! Ha ha ha, isn’t that so funny because it sounds like…..Hey Mom, what’s it sound like?”
• The phone ringing with yet another collection agent for Maria-something or other- who used to have this phone number before me. Poor Maria must be in a heap of debt.
• The theme song to Wow Wow Wubbzy…Wubbzy Wubbzy Wow Wow! Dear Jesus.
• The sounds of two little boys laughing hysterically at something in their bunk beds while they are supposed to be sleeping. Whatever it is, it is so funny that Joshua is wheezing. Maybe the spider joke again?
• The sound of silence as my little men have finally given in to sleep and are now sprawled like chubby starfish, arms above their heads, dreaming of their days.

The sounds of motherhood are unique in each house, yet all the same somehow.