That’s what my husband calls it. He’s quite aware of how much extra time I’m putting into getting my sites ready to handle themselves when this baby is born and about a month after, ideally.

It makes sense to me. I don’t nest much in real life. No crazed cleaning of the house, scrubbing areas I’d leave alone normally, etc. I still loathe housecleaning, no matter how far pregnant I get.

I also don’t spend much time on a nursery. I told my husband where I want the cradle, and we’ve figured out where the crib will go when she’s big enough for that. There. Done setting up things for baby.

Aside from the basic childproofing for each stage. But that comes later anyhow.

But I do this every time online. I start going nuts over my business, getting things organized.

I guess that says a lot about my focus. It’s not on the home. It’s on business.

Housework for me is the minimum to keep things sane and sanitary for my family. Sometimes a little more under control, sometimes less.

I’d rather make time for playing with my kids than cleaning with them. Too bad that isn’t a form of nesting. It sounds fun. Excessive play…

THAT is my belly button. It is not an exit, nor will it be one at any time in the future. Pushing on it will not help you get out.

THOSE are my lungs. I need them to breathe. Kicking them day and night may be entertaining, but they will keep getting in your way. They are also not blocking the way out.

THAT is my stomach. Kicking it gives Mommy heartburn. Lots and lots of heartburn.

THAT is my bladder. Now we’re getting closer to the way out. But that does not mean you get to use it as a punching bag. Keep your head in that general area, and when it’s time for you to come out you’ll be aimed in more or less the right direction.

Despite my complaints, it’s so much fun feeling you move around. Sleepless nights and all. We’ll be getting to know each other even better soon. I look forward to it.

Love, Mommy

I posted a while back about my goals for 2009. I like to think they’re pretty achievable, but of course there’s one big complication:

Planning around baby.

That’s going to be roughest in the early months of the year. You don’t want to know how very tired I get right now. It’s hard to get work done consistently at the moment. I know quite well that I’m unfocused and tired.

This will of course be getting worse as my due date approaches, and then as I get still less sleep after she’s born.

Ideally, of course, I’ll go into natural labor and be home in a couple days. But since I had a C-section last time I do have to face the reality that I may be stuck with one again. That’s a much more difficult recovery, as I remember it, as well as more painful.

This means I have to think about making realistic goals just for the early parts of the year when I’m too tired to accomplish much.

In January, that means getting things ready for when I go into labor, and the early, exhausted days following. While working at home means I don’t need to take 6 weeks of maternity leave, taking things easy for the first few weeks is only smart.

At the same time, stopping all efforts is not what I want to do.

This makes the big January goal to prewrite some blog posts. Topics that I can just have saved, and hit publish when I need them to go out. This kind of thing keeps it looking as though I’m chugging along, while I focus on what’s really important at that point in my life.

And that’s not just posting cute baby pictures!

February, along with any part of January that may get caught up in having the baby (due date is Feb 3, so I do have to consider this), will be whatever work I can stand to do, while being there for all 3 kids. It’s the initial adjustment period, and I know my son in particular will be adjusting.

Besides, he has a February birthday also, although it’s later in the month.

By March, I hope to be getting somewhat back to normal… whatever the new normal happens to be. Won’t be the same, of course. But I would sure like to be getting the fuzz out of my head and my focus back.

We already have the office setup planned so baby can be near me even when I do work, and to protect her from all the little toys the older two leave around. Just a nice play area where only baby toys will be allowed, I or someone else can sit and play with her, and just have her near me. Beyond just when she’s nursing and I’m typing one handed, that is.

It will be interesting to see how things work out. The thought of being the mom of 3 is pretty overwhelming in some ways, especially when I add in trying to keep running my business without going completely insane. But I love what I do and I love my family, so I have no doubts that I will manage it all somehow.

Life has been interesting during this pregnancy for me. It’s rather draining for one thing. Adding in some rather severe hip pain due to the way things are loosening up in preparation for childbirth doesn’t help. Neither does the sweet clinginess of my 3 year old son.

Not that I really like to complain about that last. Despite having an older sister as well, my son seems quite well aware that a baby means big changes in his life. His recent need for my constant presence has emphasized that quite nicely.

This period has been one of the most challenging for me to get work done. Pregnancy is tiring, and it is so important to get enough rest. I joke with my husband that there’s only one plus to all the hip pain – it ensures that I don’t go overboard nesting. I HAVE to take breaks regularly or I will hardly be able to move.

And no, Tylenol doesn’t help. I wish it did.

There’s a lot that I hope to get done before I have this baby. I’d like to have a backlog of blog posts ready to go, for example. I may not be able to describe in advance how things went in the hospital, but I can certainly blog about more of the regular work at home and stay at home parenting issues I’m already familiar with.

Add in the usual blog posts I do just to keep things running around here.

Add in my preference for article marketing. This is the one I’ve been letting slide, as it’s least visible directly on my site.

I do have some plans. First of all, if anyone reading this wants to submit a guest post for this blog, the contact form link is on the left hand menu. I won’t be using anything until probably January or February, but anyone who wants to start talking with me now, feel free.

I also need to go through my private label article stash. Some may work adequately as blog posts with only minor rewriting. Others won’t be something I’d want to post but may suffice as a sort of research for a better article that I can write on my own, taking less time than doing the research would otherwise. I always check claims in private label articles, as the lowest quality ones I ever tried had a bunch of flat out falsehoods. Other companies make ones that are good enough to use flat out, but I prefer to add my own voice in anyhow.

Coping with my son’s needs can be far more challenging. I can’t keep count of how many times a day he asks for a snuggle… which inevitably turns into a game of Tickle Spiders. Well, almost inevitably. Once in a while he really is just cuddly.

But then there’s the backtrack on potty training. This has been a battle for a few months now. It started in large part because we had so many changes for him to deal with at once, the pregnancy, the start of my husband’s job, my daughter going back to school.

Yeah, this has been going on for a few months. Getting him trained for #1 wasn’t so bad, but #2…

Well I think if I gave you any details it would be TMI. Suffice it to say it’s been rough and there’s been a lot of extra laundry going on. Thank goodness he’s finally calming down about the whole deal and being willing to at least try.

It’s been a balancing act, indulging his need for reassurance and my need to work. Not to mention helping him to understand that baby will take some of Mommy’s time and at times he will have to deal with it. He likes talking about the ways he can help out, though, and the reassurance that Mommy can snuggle him and the baby at the same time if he’s careful.

Looking back I realize how much easier I had it during past pregnancies. I worked at home during both, but things were simpler. No other kids during my first, of course. I wasn’t pushing my business so hard during my second, and my daughter has always been a more independent child than my son. Good thing too, considering how much extra care he needed after being born!

Now I have a daughter in first grade, a son in speech therapy 3 days a week, and when I can manage it a fairly demanding work schedule. Thank goodness that last bit is up to me and I can drop things as I choose!

I think one of the hardest things for me with this pregnancy has been rescheduling my work times to cope with the fact that sometimes I just get more tired.

At that I’m lucky. If I worked outside the home I’d just have to cope or call in sick. I do love my flexibility in work times!

This past weekend’s trip was one of those occasions where I had to think about what I wanted to do not only by, well, what I wanted to do, but also what I was really up for doing. Combine attending BlogWorld Expo with being 5 months pregnant and dealing with severe hip pain, and you really do start to think of excuses to just sit down.

Which makes it really hard to network until you get to a table full of people you can talk to. But it’s really good for attending sessions.

I was just glad to only be 5 months along. Another month or two, and I very much doubt I would have risked it. I came too close to losing my son late in my previous pregnancy to take chances.

Of course everyone has their own priorities. You just have to look at the controversy surrounding what Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin did. I’m not using that as a criteria for whether or not I think she’s qualified, but she certainly opened up a big debate on what mothers should be doing so late in a pregnancy. I wouldn’t have. She did. It turned out all right for her.

And that’s enough politics for now. I just found the discussion on motherhood that opened up interesting.

As with so many things in life, it comes down to your own tolerance levels. Those of us who chose to stay at home to raise our children have different priorities than the ones who choose to work outside the home. And different from those who work outside the home out of sheer necessity.

What I don’t do and I don’t recommend doing, is letting pregnancy take complete control of your life… unless you’re on bedrest or something. There are times to push your limits and times to take it easy.

As for me, I’m trying hard to get a lot of things done. I have serious goals to consider, such as building my income to be prepared in case this miserable economy does in my husband’s nice, new job. It might.

But I’ve been taking advantage and sleeping in as much as my son will allow. Changing how much and at what time of day I read other blogs so that I can get work of my own done. And trying to get my husband to understand that walking a lot build up hip pain much faster than it builds up endurance, which he thinks I should be trying. I don’t think he understands that it’s not a muscle issue.

I know these next few months will bring more changes to how I work, and after baby girl comes around, it will change more yet. Little rascal will no doubt make life interesting in yet another new way.

They always do.