because something will happen.

saturday my mom was in the ER for vertigo.
monday hannah was in the ER for the allergic bug reaction.
yesterday i walked in my mom's back door and sue was tying a cord around her wrist and hand.

since all people round here are weird as i don't know what, although this seemed highly unusual- maybe sue was having girl scout knot tying flashbacks, or mom had read about some new carpal tunnel treatment in one of her magazines- i did not expect the answer to "what in the heck are you two doing now?" to be

"i just got bit by a copperhead snake."

um, freak out.

k8: "WHAT?!?!!! why are you calmly standing here? shouldn't you be going to the hospital? "

mother: "Well sue's putting a tourniquet on and then she's going to go get the snake so we can take it with us to be sure it's poisonous."

k8: "get it? GET IT?! GET IT?! what are you saying mom?"

mother: "i killed it after it bit me and it's in the flower bed."

sue sedately rinses a disposable gladware container and goes to retrieve the reptile and get her van.

k8:"mom stop walking around! you're pumping the venom around! sit down! good god woman! what's wrong with you?! why are you so calm?!"

mother: (calmly) "can you please get my insurance card out of my wallet. no, just give me my whole purse."

k8: (yelling wildly) "mother! a snake! a copperhead! what were you doing?! let me see! no, sit down. no, go outside and get ready to get in the van. no, sit down! go outside! hurry. don't go too fast or you'll spread the poison? how big was it? how did you kill it? does it hurt? here comes sue! go go go!! call me! "

turns out she was weeding in the flowerbed and must have disturbed the thing which although immature still got a healthy does of venom in her. nightmare. she had seen a snake in the flowerbed last week and ever since then we all had been walking around looking at the ground when we were outside. i am so paranoid over the slightest ground movement anyway- we live right on the edge of the woods. if a frog hops near my foot i scream. if a twig flips up on my foot i scream. now the terror is multiplied.

bc if there's one there's more. bc they lay eggs in nests. bc they will only get bigger as the summer goes by.

they dosed her with 6+ rounds antivenom and morphine and kept her in the ICU overnight for the treatment bc even though it's normally never fatal it can cause permanent tissue/ nerve damage if not treated correctly and immediately. she came home today and her hand is still big and it hurts up to her armpit.

see, you guys think i'm paranoid and freak out easily, which i don't deny. but now i have a new fear for the list.


















and since that isn't enough, tonight every thing i saw on the ground was a snake. sue and bob were making fun of me. then i went out in my back driveway to get something and (i am not lying it was over a foot long) THIS ran out in front of me. i screamed and peed myself which at 9 months pregnant is not hard to do.

why today, oh lizard? when i have never seen you in my yard ever before, why did you pick today to do this to me, you big fat gross thing? i have not been able to eat since, which let me tell you, is an extreme rarity these days.

let me go now, and begin construction on the bubble suits for myself and my children.

lawd have mercy i'm supposed to work thru next friday the 1st but i dunno. travis, i predict, will weigh somewhere around 15 pounds give or take. everywhere i go people keep asking me if i'm overdue. in a sick way, each time i have a twinge or ache i'm hoping it's labor so i can get this ovah with, for real!

memorial day started out nicely. we got this big ole gigantuous inflatable pool that we filled up this morning. it's the hugest blowup pool i ever saw and it has a long inflatable bench and cupholders built in. imagine an oversized jacuzzi. nothing compared to a real pool but for 35 bux it rocks. it's big enough for at least 3 adults to sit and the girls to have room to swim around. so scott and the girls swam while i baked a yellow cake w caramel icing. at 2 bob and sue took the girls to the church picnic.

things were so nice and peaceful for about 30 minutes til mom called and said hannah got bit by something and was having an allergic reaction. i threw on clothes real quicklike and when sue pulled up it was all i could do not to freak out. the whole left side of her face was red and puffed up and her eye was almost swollen shut and she had bites all down her shoulder and arm. by the time we got to the ER it was getting worse.

we got triaged and they took us back. it took forever to get seen though and by the time the doctor got to us, it had stopped swelling and was not as red. they gave her prednisone and benadryl. by the time we left she was her normal self again, personality wise. her eye is still swollen though and we have dubbed her pirate pete.

random pix:
saturday the girls caught a frog. it was big excitement. i let them keep it til daddy got home to show him. i found the sacred glass skippy jar with the holes in the lid that my brother and i used to catch fireflies in and we put the fwoggy in it. they don't make em like that anymore, people.





sunday we went to visit relatives in MD, got back late. took lots of pix of the monkeys, of course. here are two of my faves.





please forgive me for not commenting your blog. i just don't have the energy. i have been clicking around and reading them though.

xok8

i'm so slack. firstly, i never posted any pictures from the shower my sister gave me waaaaaaay back in april. i'm too lazy right now to download then crop and upload all the pics my sister sent me so i thought i would show you the cakes and the favors from both showers i had.

the shower my sister gave me was a nursery rhyme theme. everything was adorable- even the games were nursery rhyme oriented. the only thing that bit was half the people who said they were coming never showed so my sister busted her own pregnant behind to fix all this food and stuff for just a few people.
here's the cake..how cute is this???



and the favors...



the shower gels (get it- shower) were assorted scents so one could choose their preferred flavor.


my church baby shower was this past saturday.
here's the cake...



so sweet! btw the top of the booties are jumbo marshmallows.

and the favors...



inside...baby powder scented mini soaps- scratch and sniff the screen and pretend you can smell them.




my sister and i are all about some favors. my mom and lots of other folks round here think it's silly to even have favors but they just don't understand. favors can make or break the fiesta. they must be just right. much thought and study must go into the selection of not just the favors themselves, but also the presentation of said favors.

having said that, tell me how pathetic i am. my mom and sue hosting the shower this past saturday and gaspers! they were not planning to have favors.

no favors?

a baby shower?

so many potentially lovely favors from which to select? the horror. so i picked and assembled the favors myself. yes that's right, for my own shower. oh well some people just wouldn't understand the favorlovethang.

secondly, i have also never done the meme i was tagged for from twisted cinderella, and now geannie has tagged me with the same one. i'm supposed to think of seven weird or unusual facts about myself. and with a such a small portion of my cerebrum functioning too? it's almost cruel and unusual punishment.

let's see- well something kind of weird about me is the fact that every pair of pants, slacks, skirt or other bottom i own has an elastic waist. ok maybe except like the one pair of jeans i rarely wear. i cannot stand anything that has zippers, buttons, snaps, etc. this started out due to the fact that i have no waist and regular clothes don't fit me, and then turned into a comfort thing. that's right- the only jeans i have ever found that fit me are the old navy ultra low waist jeans. and on me they come up to my waistline like regular pants. in order to get regular zippered pants that fit my waist, they have to be so big that the waist is the ONLY part that fits and the rest are baggy and super huge cuz i gots no butt or thighmeat. my legs are super skinny compared to the rest of my body. right now at 8 months prego i look like a big egg on sticks.

i absolutely positively cannot stand to have any lint or animal hair on me. i have lint rollers placed throughout the house and a mini one in my purse. and in my desk at school. god forbid i have to sit down at someone's house who has alot of cats or dogs. i get the heeby jeebs. i must roll immediately as soon as i exit.

ok that's just 2 things and my brain stopped working. 2=7 for a pregnant person right? i will keep thinking and if something else pops into my brain i will post it.

k thanks.

please pray for me and travis as the big day approaches cuz my nerves are on edge.

x0k8

my grandma is consolidating her household furniture/goods/etc. bc she's moving and as a result i am proud to announce i have a big mexican chest! no really, i have always loved this piece of furniture and she gave it to me. we now have it in the bedroom facing our bed with the tv on top and scott says the faces give him the creeps and he expects them to start blinking their eyes and talking in scary voices but i said NO! they're happy fat mexican cherubs surrounded by flowers.


about the brain thing...when i went to the doctor this week they wanted to know if i had any questions. i said "yeah, um, aren't i supposed to fill out some kind of paperwork at the hospital before this kid comes out?" they looked at me like i was an idiot. "you were supposed to do that after your first prenatal visit."

"but no one told me anything about it."
"ok, well, must have been an oversight."
uh-huh.

you're probably thinking i'm a fool not to have thought of it before cuz everybody has to do that but remember last time things weren't a normal birthtype scenario. really, i think they should have told me. what if i had gone into labor w no paperwork filed?

anyways, travis is now head down (he's been head up til this week) thinking he's gonna blast out the normal way; he doesn't know he's coming out the emergency exit.

my c-section is scheduled for june 7, which gives me plenty of time to worry and stress out. i think i liked it better the last time when it happened really fast in a rush and i didn't have a chance to really sit and think about the needle in the spine, the big chopchop, the upcoming pain, etc.

i was also thinking about the umbilical cord care thing. last time the girls were in the hospital for 2+ weeks and theirs fell off before they got home. yikes.

but my sugar levels are still normal w no insulin and my bp is good to go too. and up til this point i have no swelling at all- i can still wear my jewelry and normal shoes. my last day at work is june 1 so i'm counting down.

my church baby shower is saturday- will have to fill you in on the excitement afterwards.

xok8

the girls have been practicing at school for "da spwing pwogwam."

this is their new favorite song to sing but i cant ever figure out what they're saying in the third line. the song goes:
the birds up in the treetops sing their song
the angels in the chorus all day long
the flowers in the garden
something something hue?
so why shouldn't i
why shouldn't i
praise Him too?

btw they are in speech therapy fyi thank you very much.

last week before church i found a TICK on my back. there's not a lot more grosser things i can think of, you? i mean we live near the woods but i rarely find any ticks on me. maybe one in the last 5 years. anyway it was little and i got scott to remove it for me. it bothered me- a little bit itchy- but it went away.

til thursday night. i was scratching and scratching bc it was like, kind of under my arm and i went and looked in the mirror and the spot where the tick had been was freaking HUGE and red all around it. i put cortaid on it. yesterday morning i looked and it was so much worse- a huge red circular welt and it was spreading and itching like crrrrrrazy. more cortaid.

yesterday at work in the afternoon the kids were doing a worksheet and i don't know why but it just popped into my head to google "tick bite rash pregnancy."

oh. mah. gah.

everything i read was bad bad bad. it all said that if you get a delayed rash, 7-14 days after the bite, then most likely it's something serious like some creepy tick disease- there are alot of them including lyme. i kept reading and scanned down to phrases like "pass disease to your unborn baby" and then "risk of miscarriage or stillbirth."

you know that horrible adrenaline feeling you get when you can tell somebody is about to tell you some really bad news, like sick to your stomach? i was freaking. i called my doctor's office on my cell phone and explained the whole deal to the receptionist- tick bite, delayed reaction, bullseye rash, what i had read on the internet. she told me somebody would call back asap. nobody did. (shocking)

so as soon as school was out i burnt rubber down the highway to the dr's office. the look on their face was priceless- who wants a walk-in patient at 3:45 on friday afternoon?- but you know what- i did not care. come heck or high water the doctor was gonna look at my fat itchy armpit!

they were, of course, already running waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay behind schedule. i had called my mom on the way and she met me down there for support- thanks mommy. finally i got to see the doctor, and he said i had concern to be worried but even with the delayed rash the chances it was something bad are super low, but just in case he put me on an antibiotic that's safe for travis and will get rid of whatever it is if there is something.

the kicker is- he told me he had gotten the message and it only had my name, number, and the message "tick bite- concerned." um, did i not go through a 5 minute explanation of why i was concerned, dingbat receptionist?

boy, was i ever ticked.

(snicker.)