It was a quiet and restful night.

It was a quiet and restful day, too, now that I think about it. I call them "gestating days"... days where it appears that my major accomplishment will be growing the baby inside of me. Nothing more, nothing less. Just gestating.

Days like this make me wonder how I will handle having an infant again. I like to play this little game with myself: I stop in the middle of something and think, What if you had a three month old right now? Who was crying? And needed his/her diaper changed? And it goes on and on. And the answer I always come back to is the same: I'd deal with it and do the best I can. Of course, I won't feel like puking every few hours, either, so that's got to make it a little easier.

Life/motherhood only gets better and I know this because of my lively seven year old who shares her liveliness at school for six hours a day and my three year old who happily lounges around with me on my gestating days and watches Cinderella with me and tells me, "I love you Mommy" while we're all snuggled up together on the couch with our blankets. Delicious.

I am beyond peaceful with the idea that this is the last time I ever have to be pregnant; this is the last first trimester I will ever have to go through; that the decision of whether we go for it and have a third or stick with what we've got is laid to rest. We're here and it's wonderful.

I have successfully shipped my husband and children off to church for the evening, have settled onto the couch (well, resettled after a brief interlude of upright-ness for dinner) and am going to flood my brain with utterly worthless television.
And gestate.
Peacefully.

That's Trazy, Man.

Jenna has sported a very common learning-to-speak verbal quirk (I think it's a little over the top to call it a speech impediment) that has permeated the household: she doesn't say the letters c,k, or g. And now neither do we.
I can't put my fin-der, I mean finger, on when it exactly started happening, but Dan and I seem to be losing the ability to say those same letters, whether we're talking to Jenna or just to each other. It's a "when in Rome, do as the Romans do..." kind of thing. Dan really finds this speech pattern of hers to be quite adorable and has mentioned several times that he'll be sad when she drows, I mean grows up and just says g's and k's and c's like everyone else.
So in the meantime, we are doing what I'm fairly certain is the worst possible thing we can do: talk to her in the dialect that she uses with us and not modeling better speech patterns.
Just for the sake of posterity, these are some of the cutest and most common words she mangles:
crazy= trazy
Kiki the cat = Teetee the tat
Gammie = Dame-y (which also sounds like her Aunt Jaime's name)
Michaela = Mitay-la
Who stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar?= Who stole the tootie from the tootie jar?
When she does something wrong= "Am I done-ah have tonse-twences?"
Net-lace (necklace), may-tup (makeup), tup-tate (cupcake), ta-wire (choir), "Tan I please have...?"... the list goes on and on.
She also had started ordering drinks/drints from Dan and I in what we call the James Bond Fashion: "I'd lite told water, in a dlass, with no ice."
Shaken, not stirred.

Baby Update: Not much cookin' in the baby department. I felt much better last week than I have in months and got up to about 85% functioning. I was actually able to make a homemade dinner last night AND ate some it! Victory is MINE!
I have also started a funny, intense craving for diet soda, which I could have easily up to this point of my life never drank again and not be too upset. But suddenly, ooohhh... it's all I want. I feel like a heroin addict, with some type of bizarre release coming over me as I take that first long, deep drink. I actually closed my eyes in pleasure one day last week as I drank it. Of course, I have done nothing but rag on Dan for the last 13 years about how his daily diet soda habit is "slowly rotting your gut away... it's poison!! POISON!" and now here I am arranging my errands so I can stop at a drive thru and score some.
Alas, I am limiting myself to only drinking it a few times a week, since the majority of ingredients are nothing close to what you'd want your fetus ingesting. Those What to Expect When You're Expecting Freakazoids would have a field day with me. (Yeah, it's an informative book and I have read it many, many times but mostly all it did was make me feel inadequate as a mom... but that's a whole other post.)
But, oh, the soda's so good. TRAZY good.

The Third, Last, and Final Libutti Baby

I start today's post with a huge confession: I have been lying to you since the start of 2009. Every time I have reported not much was going on here, every time I talked about the dearth of excitement... I was lying. Because the whole time I have been bursting with a wonderful secret.

I am pregnant.

Of course, I have not felt like doing to much except gestating for the last three months, either, so in reality, not a whole heck of a lot HAS gone on here. When Mommy's down for the count, it's all about survival.

Here are the answers to all the burning questions people have asked since we started telling people.

1. My due date is September 23. Ironically, this was also Michaela's due date but she decided to hang out in my uterus for another two weeks until we kicked her out on October 8th.

Turns out Dan and I enjoy New Year's more than we realized.

2. We are definitely going to find out if it is a boy or a girl. Two incorrect guesses are enough for me. Plus we have some logistical issues as we have two bedrooms for three children and Jenna's going to have to bunk with either her big sister or little sister.

3. Yes, of course we'd love to have a boy but honestly I would be beyond thrilled to have another girl. I LOVE having daughters. But having a boy would bring a nice balance to the family and would do a lot to prevent Dan from bringing home a Great Dane and naming him Duke or Rocco.

4. How do I feel? Do you really want to know? How much time do you have?? The short answer is that I am never, ever doing this again. The longer short answer is that I started out ok and and got worse and worse until this weekend when I was totally miserable and useless. I am hoping and praying and hoping and wishing that I am over the worst of it now as I am in my 12th week. But it was ugly. Trust me.

5. Yes, we have a grasp on human biology and the concept of birth control. The baby was planned, intended, discussed to the Nth degree, and agreed upon by both parties. Well, pretty much.

6. This pregnancy has been more similar to Michaela's than Jenna's. I was very sick and tired with Michaela the first trimester and then sailed through the rest. Jenna's pregnancy was completely different-feeling from start to finish (I wasn't sick with her, just hungry; I also was an emotional basketcase and bought a lot of STUFF. Hormone spending, I called it.) I gained half the weight with Jenna that I did with Michaela. I carried differently and had easy labor with Jenna and back labor with Michaela. Both were healthy, just different. The only difference I see with this one so far is that I am craving lots of carbs: pasta, bread, and bagels. And everything I eat I must slather in butter or ketchup or honey. I could eat McDonald's fries, dipped in McDonald's BBQ sauce, every day.

I had my first ultrasound today and everything checks out so far. We are thrilled, elated, overwhelmed, excited, anxious, and can't wait to lay eyes on the newest member of our family!!!

The Straight-on View of Baby #3

Who's up for a little Product Review?

1. Johnson's body care Deep Hydrating Extra Dry Skin Lotion: I bought this a couple of weeks ago and really like it. What makes it blog-worthy is the write up on the back, which I discovered a few days ago ('cause, really, who READS the back of a lotion bottle?) and am still mesmerized by.

She is a natural, instinctive

caregiver. She wants

the best for herself

and her loved ones.

She loves this rich, creamy

intensive moisturizing lotion with a

touch of oil inside, because it helps relieve

rough, thirsty skin in just one application

and continues to hydrate for 24 hours.

Her spirit is beautifully nurturing.

Her skin loves JOHNSON'S.

WOW! Is this ME? Am I the natural, instinctive caregiver? Is MY spirit beautifully nurturing? Isn't my lotion making some rather large assumptions about me as a mom? I mean, hey, I'm happy for the vote of confidence- everyone likes to be told they're doing a good job- but does my JOHNSON'S really know anything about my parenting skills?
Even so, I have to admit I love my lotion a little more every time I use it. Because it likes me and thinks I'm AWESOME.

2. Wyler's Mrs. Grass Soup Mix- Extra Noodles: I was in the soup aisle today at the grocery store and this fun little blue box caught my eye. On impulse, I threw it in my cart and made it today for lunch. It looked warm, simmer-y, and welcoming. And extra-noodle-y. How can I go wrong?
Well, I boiled it up and waited for it to cool. I took my first bite and was blown away... by how much it tasted exactly how an old woman's house smells. A little mothball, a little perfume, a little staleness and several indistinct cooked food scents. Yeah, think of your own Grandma's house and imagine biting into it.
I have no idea what Mrs. Grass puts in her soup to make it taste this way, but I was repulsed and drawn to it at the same time. I couldn't ignore the beautiful egg noodles swirling around and had to finish it.
But I didn't feel very good about myself afterwards, eating my grandma's house and all.

'Cause that's how we roll.

Our neighbors across the street got a huge tree cut down in their front yard today.

The girls and I were mesmerized by the big equipment, especially the crane.

In a sad reflection of the dearth of excitement in our house, I took pictures of the tree removal.

Then Michaela whipped out her Hannah Montana digital camera and took pictures.

Then Jenna found her pretend Princess camera (well, she of course calls it her "tamera") and snapped a few shots.

I felt more than a little pathetic: spying on neighbor's workmen and taking pictures. Yup, that's how stay-at-home moms and their bored children roll in the Northeast on a frigid, snowy March morning. We'll embrace just about ANY break from the routine.

Ugh.