24 weeks...

I planned to post a belly pic with this, but don't have one from this week.  (SORRY)  I will get right on that.

Before I get into the compaining part, the past week or so I've finally seen some real patterns in baby's activity levels, and he might actually turn out to be a NIGHT PERSON (like me)! YAY!  The whole pregnancy I have been waking up early in the morning, usually my best time to sleep, and I took this as a sign that this baby, like Knucklehead (my ten year old) is going to be a morning person.  But his most active time now seems to be around 10 PM, much like mommy.  His kicks and movements now are actually visible from the outside, which makes Knucklehead laugh.  The other night I had my iPad balanced on my belly and was trying to show my son a video, but the whole thing kept jumping and tipping wildly with my baby-belly movements.  It was pretty funny.

OK now for the complaining part (feel free to stop reading here and come back another day for more happy smiley stuff)

This whole 'irritable uterus' thing seriously SUCKS.

The contractions still don't hurt, other than mild pain if I am gassy or constipated, or have a full bladder.  But they are ANNOYING and a pain in the butt.  Not literally, of course.

Now I am finding that ANY activity stimulates these contractions.  Obviously any kind of abdominal exercise does this (including the whole sitting-up-to-get-out-of-bed workout).  Having a bowel movement stimulates contractions.  I guess this is one area that I should be grateful for hubby's current deployment, because sexual activity also gets the contractions going.  (But ooooohhhhh I do miss sex almost as much as I miss my hubby!  Sorry if that is TMI)

Yesterday I was laughing while watching my son play at the beach and....yup, you guessed it - this set off more contractions.  LAUGHTER!  Really?

Walking on the beach yesterday really strained my low back, which has already been bugging me this week.  So I tried to do some stretches this morning to ease that pain, and.....YUP.  More contractions.

This is so exhausting!  Now I wish I could go back to just peeing my pants every time I sneeze/laugh/jump.  That was nothing compared to these contractions.

Am I really going to survive 16 more weeks of this?????  I mean, physically I know I can make it, but MENTALLY....that's another matter altogether.

School is out in one week - which means I have only 5 days left of my very part-time crossing guard job before the summer break.  I'm grateful to have a paycheck, even such a SMALL one, but am even more grateful for the break!  The heat has been (finally) hitting us, and it makes the job a lot less fun.  At least the job itself is not causing more contractions!  If I get tired and choose to sit down on the shift, just the act of sitting down or standing up does bring on a contration, but standing and walking still seems to be OK.

I'm re-reading what I just wrote, and just realized - HOLY COW, 16 WEEKS?!?!  That's all I have left?!  I better get crackin on that nursery!