the day chase ate 1-3 adult stool softeners and we didn't figure it out until 9 hours later.

so tuesdee.

let me tell ya about tuesdee.

i was in a panic about my seeds not being up yet.

the pumpkins in particular.

because if the green beans didn't come,

i'd be sad,

but if the pumpkins didn't come up i'd be devastated.

it had been 12 days,

and tiff and i agreed that maybe we'd just gotten a bad pack.

i was cursing harmon's bc last year the seeds i bought from them never came up either.

so tiff and i agreed that i'd better get my big old pregnant belly out there to replant the pumpkins just in case, or just come to terms with the fact that i probably wouldn't have pumpkins.

i couldn't come to terms with it,

so out i went, and it was hot.

REAL{ly} hot.

on my way back in about ten minutes later, 

out comes chase walking with the children's gummy vitamins in hand.

which meant i knew he had climbed up onto the kitchen counter again.

first he gets the little stool out of the pantry,

then he climbs up onto the garbage can,

and from there it's free reign on the entire kitchen counter.

so i scolded him for getting into the cabinet,

put the stool away,

and sent tiff an EXASPERATED text 

that i was too pregnant and it was too hot for seeds to not be coming up!!!

pretty much, i think i was just hot.

hot and cranky.

then i realized i hadn't eaten lunch,

the kids hadn't eaten lunch,

and we were all just cranky, hot, and hungry.

we ate lunch,

chase pooped in his pants THRICE in half an hour,

and so i waved the white flag of surrender and just decided 

i would put him down early for a nap,

give max a movie,

put my feet up, and take the rest of the day off.

that is until it was time for carpool.

well,

once i picked up carpool and chase woke up from his nap,

it was a pooping frenzie all over again.

i was BESIDE myself!

every time i turned around he was pooping in his underwear.

and i was just feeling like i am the worst potty trainer on the planet.

i emailed the pediatrician,

alerting him that he was being emailed by a VERY CRAZY PREGNANT lady,

and what did he think about putting chase back in diapers because i honestly couldn't clean poop out of underwear one more time today, and with a newborn baby coming in one week this was just putting me over the edge, but wouldn't that make my life harder anyway b/c i know chase wouldn't pee in a diaper anyway, and so i'd be taking a diaper off and putting it back on all day long for him to be potty trained except for the poop AGAIN,

and could he please either give me a pep talk or give me SOME kind of secret he's been holding out on this entire time on how to get this insanity to stop!

like the count was up to 6 times of pooping in his underwear at this point,

and i was loosing it.

i just knew my fingers were gonna smell like poop for the rest of my life.

sean came home from work,

chase pooped in his underwear another 3 times,

and then he was asking me where the diapers were because now every time he was turning around his fingers were permanently smelling like poop too, and aren't we glad we have these three kids so under control just in time for a newborn to come???

so off he hoisted chase into the bath as it was almost bedtime anyway,

and that's when i took a breather and went to take my vitamins for the day.

which is when i noticed that the stool softeners were gone.

like they weren't sitting in their normal spot in the kitchen cabinet,

neatly hidden behind the children's gummy vitamins.

and that's when all of a sudden it hit me.

THE ADULT STOOL SOFTENERS WERE GONE.

and so i yelled up to the bath,

"SEAN!!!! THE ADULT STOOL SOFTENERS ARE GONE!!!"

and he was all, "WHAAAAAT???!!!"

and i was all,

"CHASE!!!!! DID YOU TAKE SOME PILLS TODAY 

WHEN YOU GOT THE VITAMINS OUT???!!!"

and max was all, "yep, he did, i saw him. i told him not to, 

but he did anyway. naughty, naughty."

very matter of factly.

and sean and i were all, "oh my GOOOOSH!!! max!!! you have to tell us if you see something like that!!! and CHASE!!! you don't do that!!!"

you know, responsible parent stuff where you're really just standing there in shock and thinking someone's going to come and take your children away from you because you clearly aren't watching your kids like you should.

and also, i was laughing a lot.

like i tried to not laugh,

but it was just really funny,

and i couldn't stop laughing.

and i didn't think it was actually life threatening,

but i did call my sister in law natalie, who's a nurse,

and after she stopped laughing,

i counted the number of pills in the bottle,

questioned max a million times how many he ate,

and it was determined he could have eaten anywhere between 1 and 3 of them,

at which point we both decided we'd better play it safe 

and call poison control to square things up here.

except i couldn't stop laughing,

and i was just really thinking how he needed to be nice and cleaned out anyway, 

and why had i been wasting my time with miralax on him all this time,

when i could have been giving him these!

much more effective.

{the bottle DID say 1 pill was safe for 2 and up just FYI.}

and sean was all, "honey, stop laughing! this isn't funny!"

{except later he said it was funny--he's just more responsible and mature in the moment than me almost always.}

so i very responsibly and calmly stopped laughing, 

and called poison control like the grown up i am,

and used my best this is not funny voice so they knew i was one of the RESPONSIBLE parents calling poison control, not one of the irresponsible ones.

and they told me to fill him up with crystal light,

and call us back if he started puking,

and they actually had a lot of calls coming in right now,

and could they just call back and check on him in the morning {this is when i knew for sure we were in the clear and i didn't have to feel badly about laughing anymore.}

he was acting normal all night after all, and eating and running and playing,

and pleased a punch that for once i let him eat a banana,

as these ARE his favorite fruit,

but he can never have them because he's always so stopped up i won't let him.

{i have to hide them in new spots every week because i have found him closet eating them at lightening fast speeds when no one's looking or around to catch him.}

so anyway,

he drank his big sippy full of crystal light,

went to bed,

woke up an hour later to pee out about a gallon of pee,

and that was the end of the chase ray ate 1-3 adult stool softeners saga.

{i emailed the pediatrician back again around midnight that night saying, guess what?! i have SUCH  funny story for you. please disregard previous crazy pregnant lady email as the crisis has been averted! and i can't wait to tell you the story of how chase ray ate 1-3 adult stool softeners when i see you in 10 days when gibson #4 is born, at which point i will no longer be pregnant crazy, 

just newborn mother crazy. 

his response: "i have no words. let's chalk this up to pregnancy brain and never speak of it again! good luck, and see you soon." by now sean was also laughing, and i was all "why don't they have child locks on the stool softeners anyway???" and then we went to bed and didn't feel like we were the WORST potty trainers ever, just normally not good.}. 

...

P.S.

the pumpkins came up after all.

and not the ones i replanted tuesdee.

the original ones we planted two weeks ago.

AND there are 7 peaches on the peach tree.

glory be,

friday is better than tuesdee.

{the end.}

on the last day of 1st grade

baby fat gone.

mr. confidence here.

struck that pose all on your own.

socks don't go up to your knees anymore either.

picture doesn't show how much taller you grew 

because your fancy pose made you look shorter.

...

on the last day of 1st grade we couldn't find your shoes.

i made you wear your wet converse that are pretty much too small for you that sat outside in the rain by the tramp the night before because we couldn't find your shoes the day before either.

it was free dress day/favorite color day.

it took you 15 minutes to get dressed.

you wanted pancakes for breakfast.

two.

you ate them all.

WITH an extra pool of syrup on the side.

you drank half a glass of milk,

ate some strawberries,

and told me you didn't want the pb and honey sandwich i made you for lunch.

pudding cup YES:)

i mean really though, that was always my favorite too.

you wear your backpack over your head with one strap now.

sometime during the middle of the year you started this.

i think it's really really cute.

i had to throw away your mario backpack when you got home from school today because there was a massive hole in the bottom of it from so much wear and tear this year.

i hope you don't ask me where it went.

you are SUCH a good reader.

like i can't even believe how far you've come this year.

and also you speak german.

so that's pretty awesome.

you understand more than you speak.

but now you're teaching chase and max words here and there,

and it's the cutest.

when you got home from school you wanted soda and ice cream.

and you and cade rode bikes all night.

it was a thursday.

i love you,

mom

SNAIL {37.5 weeks}

if i could describe myself 

as anything right now 

it would be a snail.

everything i do is at about .5 miles per hour.

slower if i've been sitting for too long.

my grandma gigi and i are like two 90 year olds in a pod.

{and i've actually really liked having our aches and pains in common. it's been a bonding thing, so TA speak.}

i was looking at pictures of me pregnant with the other gibs,

because i'm obsessed with worrying about this baby coming out at 10 pounds.

and in my searching of belly comparisons, 

i found one of me when i was pregnant with max at exactly the same 37.5 weeks that i am right now.

and basically the exact same progression.

except i'm pretty sure my belly is about DOUBLE in size with this current babe,

and i can't do a thing about it.

not

a

single

thing.

i remember when i was pregnant with brennan being so afraid of how everything would go.

mostly with the delivery.

and thinking that a gal would only have anxieties and fears with the first baby she had.

because after that, she'd be a pro.

but every time i have a baby i have fears and anxieties.

usually stuff that has traumatized me from the baby before.

not enough fluid before my epidural.

not enough milk.

too much milk.

colicky baby.

constipated baby.

pooping.

RSV.

tearing.

not sleeping.

too much baby sleeping.

missing breastpump.

missing breastpump power cord.

not enough milk.

but i said that one already.

i've had that problem more than not.

the other kids.

and how i'm going to manage them.

like will chase stop waking up at 6:19am every morning and opening and closing his door so loudly to announce his waking of the day that the neighbors can hear it?

and will he ever stop pooping in his underwear?

and the longer you're pregnant,

the more you have time to try to wrap your head around 

how to learn from what you were given the last time you did this.

like you have some sort of control over any of it.

which by the way, you don't.

except you think that maybe if you think about it enough you will.

but you don't.

because they just come.

and there's good,

and there's bad,

and when i think back on all of it,
i'm less worried and afraid and anxious about any of it.

because i know that my worries and fears and anxieties that i always have
are all just basically pointless when it comes down to it.
except usually you can't see that until you're past it.

and yet here i am with worries and fears and anxieties.

and last night when i was sitting by the pool,
watching my little babes swimming for the first time of the summer,

my feet propped up,

in the hot, windy shade of the big weed tree
that we always have to tell the neighbor not to cut down,

there was a part of me that was just so excited for all of it. 

the part of me that has visions and dreams 

of holding a little newborn baby lump on the front of me,

with a head smelling like johnson and johnson baby shampoo and pink baby lotion.

warm summer air all around.

and the smell of grass that has just been cut.
maybe there's music on the speakers hanging from the covered pavilion.

i can see brennan, max, and chase are lubed up with sunscreen, 

and swimming in the family yard pool.

hopefully with lots of cousins in the water with them

because those are always the most fun days.
especially as the dog days of summer really start to drag on.

and i'm just sitting there in one of the big comfy chairs,

rocking,

and none of the things i'm worried about right now are even there with me in that minute.

because it's just summer,

and i've got my four kids,

and it's hot out,

and i'm probably hoping troy will come out with his ice cream machine 

and homemade french fries.

and i'm tired, but it won't matter because maybe one of my cousins will be there distracting me from everything that's hard, and reminding me about everything that's not hard,

just everything that's great,

and nothing else is there except for that.

and so that's what i'm going to think about for the next 10 days.

not the snail,

not the belly i can barely haul around,

not the compression tights i'm wearing in 90*,

not max crying and whining over everything in her constant PMS state,

not brennan's 5 million friends,

not chase's 5 pairs of poop underwear,

and DEFINITELY NOT how i'm going to work a newborn into all of it.

because that's just not conducive to my peaceful pool summer dream.

remember now emily,

pool.

newborn lump.

swimming.

ice cream cones.

snow cones.

french fries.

sunscreen.

baby lotion.

focus emily, and no more worries.

because the next 10 days are gonna be really great too.

and then it's all going to change,

and the baby's gonna be 10 pounds or he's not gonna be 10 pounds,

and that's just gonna be it.

amen.

there, now i feel better:)

THE burning skin belt.

{almost 37 weeks}

every night i put my icy cold bottle of smart water on what i've lovingly deemed 

"the burning skin belt."

and then i let it sit there for 20 minutes of relief until i feel nothing but cold numb skin.

it's glorious.

sometimes in the middle of the night lately i wake up and have to do it then too.

b/c the skin there is just BURNING SO TIGHT!

like i feel like my skin is going to rip.

but it's numb.

except it hurts.

it hurts so badly it's numb.

do you know?

i've had this with every single one of my babies.

the only other person i've ever heard of having this is my very own mother.

any other burning skin belts out there?
bueller? bueller?

it doesn't even go away after.

numb forever.

but the burning does stop.

reckoning time {kind of like coffee i guess}

chase is my slowest waker upper.

i've never seen a child love to nap like him either.

if i let him, he would go 3 hours every day.

it is his full time life's hobby i tell you.

this of course is just not conducive to going to bed at any sort of normal time of the night now that he is 3 {even 6 months ago he would nap for 3 hours and then sleep another 12 starting at 8pm at night. it was a good long beautiful ride my friends. BEAUTIFUL beautiful ride.}.

so now every day i put this little baby man down for a nap in the crib he loves {b/c we just haven't had time to get the toddler bed crib put together with all of our flood catastrophes--it IS on the list. the long list. it's just that it's at the bottom of the list b/c it's a non catastrophe issue. you know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it non catastrophe list. that one.} 

so anyway,

every day after about an hour or an hour and a half i go into his little cowboy room,

complete with all of max's hair bows.

i turn off the fan,

open the curtains,

and crack the blinds.

and then for about half an hour he lays awake in his bed,

just slowly waking up,

while i rock in the nursing chair we put together for the littlest gibson who's about to change us all.

sometimes the house is quiet.

sometimes it's loud with neighborhood kids or max and brennan fighting after school.

it's the slowest part of our day right now,

and i treasure it.

the afternoon sun comes in,

or lately, the rain pounds the windows from outside.

sometimes i sing to him, rocking in my chair.

or i ask him which cowboy or horse picture is his favorite--anything to engage his little peepers open.

usually he yells at me to stop,

and to go away b/c he's not done "sweeeeping!!!"

he always switches laying from one side to another at some point.

he will sit up,

then lay back down at least once,

just trying to decide if it's worth it to him to leave the binky behind and get out of his bed for the rest of the night.

finally when he's fully awake he's climbs out of his little crib,

comes over and yells at me to "GET UPPPP!!!!" like i'm the one he's been waiting on the entire time,

and then we go downstairs,

get his sippy full of milk,

and i take on homework, dinner, and the balancing act of neighborhood friends in and out of our door until bath time.

it's the part of my day where i look myself in the eye and say,

you can do it em.

you're in the home stretch!

a daily reckoning of sorts.

some days i need it more than others.

but every day i need it still the same.

if we don't have time for it,

hell hath no furry like a chase that doesn't get to wake up slow.

also,

it messes with my reckoning time,

and that just ain't pretty either.

usually we cope with suckers,

and peanut butter scoops,

and trips to grandma's house and stuff like that on those days.

kind of like coffee.

i guess.

LONG LIVE THE NAP!

like when you realize your kids have started bribing their friends

my bribery methods of parenting have reached EPIC proportions.

there's just no other way to get the small people to move when i need them to move.

and since i can BARELY move, i can't make anyone else move unless they wanna move.

this will probably continue through summer.

as i will hopefully be tethered to a small little animal that requires me to not move,

and makes me unable to make anyone else move unless they wanna move too.

it's the greatest thing on the planet until it's not.

like when you realize your kids have started bribing their friends to get them to do what they want,

and you think,

hmmm, maybe this is a bad habit?

but then you're like,

nah, it DON'T MATTER!

cause ain't nobody got time to coax a toddler into his carseat,

when "i'll give you a bag of popcorn when you get in your carseat!" works so great.

so fast!

so efficient!

such a great little bandaid.

and so much immediate gratification for all involved.

popcorn!

there's nothing that gets kids to move like a bag of popcorn.

totally worth the kernels all over the floor of the car.

bahahahaha.

so we're going with it folks,

b/c my body can barely carry itself around right now,

and the little people know it.

they are in complete control.

and i'm pretty sure they know it.

the tiny army that controls my life that we created.

they run us!

but let's all just pretend to live the illusion that we run them.

mmmK.

i'm still trying to figure out if i'm the smart one,

or it they're the smart ones.

clever little creatures.

good thing i've got two more bags of popcorn.

stay tuned for THAT story later.

it's a real gem, and it involves the splits.

winning:)

rerouted, redug, rehosed

the window well that won't stop flooding.

or the memorial day gift that won't stop giving:)

rerouted,

redug,

rehosed.

max wanted to know why we didn't go to the place with all of the dead people and flags in the grass?

trenches my dear.

trenches.

we think we got it this time guys.

here's to not bucketing water out of the flower beds at 1am in your robe anymore.

my neighbors almost saw me in my underpants.

the towel i wrapped around myself is still laying in the yard.

there's only so many clothes i can have on at this point,

and i'm down to underwear bottoms in the middle of the night.

i seriously considered going out there in them too.

good thing there was a towel handy last night right by the door,

cause who knows what i would have been brought to do otherwise.

THAT could have been embarrassing.

phew.

IN like FLYNN {the garden of 2015}

sean's cousin tiffany 

{we joke she's MINE b/c i see her more than he does} 

came up last thursday to help my heavy with child self get our garden in the ground.

god bless tiff!

it was sunny and the redheads all needed sunscreen.

she's a redhead.

her little boy is a redhead.

and then there's my redhead.

so with our three of our preschool aged children 

we passed out bowls of seeds 

and told them which holes and little trenches to drop them THEIR seeds into them.

after about twenty minutes of that

tiff and i sent them all off to the tramp and sandbox 

and spent the next half an hour thinning out the corn they planted all in one row, 

to make it become corn of four rows.

all over some good old fashioned girl talk.

{we were having such a ball in fact, that at the end tiff was making pb&j's for the road for my kids while i was SCRAMBLING to get max in hair and makeup for her dance pics in 15 min flat. 

great team effort believe me YOU, and all thanks to tiff we made it. phew.}

tiffany is my go to garden EXPERT, so i love having her around this time of year,

helping me decide where the sun is going to hit the right stuff the best, 

and what parts of the day it's going to do it.

thrilling!

we did edgy things this year like planted pumpkins into the grounds without their little mounds,

and didn't soak our corn seeds the night before.

stuff like that.

just to see if it even really matters.

i'm telling you, we are garden ladies that live on the edge.

the most scandalous thing that happened in my garden this year though 

is the {ehem} kale/broccoli plant.

let me whisper this next part, because apparently,

last summer when i planted the broccoli next to the kale,

they got a little naughty down under the dirt,

without ANY of us knowing,

and have now rebirthed as the kaleBROC,

as i've started to call it.

usually i would have pulled my kale plant out with the rest of the garden in the fall,

but this year was so warm that it just kept producing WELL into december, so i left it there.

then when we had a week of winter after christmas,

and 7 days of a frozen tundra,

it finally turned brown,

and i just never got around to pulling it out.

well, to my surprise, sometime in february, i don't know really,

it started back producing kale again,

and throughout the spring i've watched it become a full blown kale producer!

let me tell you, i was bursting with gardener's pride over this entire thing.

never will i pull a kale plant ever again!

then, with what did my wondering eyes did appear 

over the last month but BROCCOLI sprouting out of its top.

BROCCOLI OUT OF THE TOP OF MY LAST YEAR'S KALE PLANT!

i know, i know,

i can barely believe it myself.

SHOCKING!

and all going on in my very OWN yard without me knowing it.

their roots did the tulsa tickle all secret like under there,

and gave birth to this amazing little red headed green headed illegitimate garden child.

ladies and gentlemen,

i give you...

THE kaleBROC:

kale at the bottom,

broccoli coming out the top.

it's like the mullet of garden produce i say.

{insert angel choir singing here.}

stay tuned this summer for this excitingly new cross pollination 

of the most unexpected of couples!

to be continued...

i'm so ready for juicy ripe tomatoes, towering sunflowers, 

slip and slides and baby pools, and 500 Popsicle sticks all over my grass,

i can almost taste it:)

2 months of walmart supplies so i can make it 10 more days.

pregnancy is temporary,

and for that i'm so very grateful:)

because right now, 

there aren't enough pillows on the planet to help me get any kind of sleep.

...

after dr Nielson checked me today and gave me the good news,

he laughed a little bit when i told him june 13th would really be most convenient,

'cause ya know, my body is on its merry way!

now before we all get too excited,

i'd like to note that i'm usually more in labor than people who are actually in labor for the next 3 weeks, historically speaking that is.

and then i don't go into labor until i'm induced,

and then i'm so progressed when i go in to do that,

that with a little pitocin, epidural, and water breaking,

i've got a baby in my arms in 4 hours or less.

it's awesome.

i love this amazing body of mine.

god bless it.

because if there's one thing to excel at in life,

i've decided child birth tops the charts.

wouldn't it be weird if i actually WENT into labor though???

i sat there today on the clinic table listening to dr Nielson go through the rules of when you should come in, how to tell if you're in labor, blah, blah, blah, blah,

and then it hit me, that i probably wouldn't know what to do if i actually WENT into labor.

and maybe i should listen up for two seconds.

and then i kind of tuned out because i started thinking about how isn't that so weird where i'm having a 4th baby and i don't know what it's like to do such a thing?

and by the time i started listening again he was asking me if i had any other questions,

and i was like nope, let's plan for 7am on june 13th:)

and then on the way home, i decided i was better to be safe than sorry,

and i bought up 2 months worth of deodorant, sunscreen, allergy medicine, 

and johnson and johnson baby supplies at walmart. 

because there's no better method of NOT going into labor than being ready. 

so this weekend i'm gonna be getting ready.

and next weekend i'm gonna be getting ready.

and then once june 1st hits i'll be happy as a clam and all ready,

and by the time i'm having another over 9lb baby on june 13th 

with my normally scheduled 39 week induction, 

i'll probably be cursing my words,

and wishing i would have not gotten ready 

and that he would have come early;)

but until then,

not yet little man,

i need 10 more days.

send reinforcements {or sonic ice--CLOSET REDO}

there's a blue dog with a binky on the shelf up there.

between the bin of legos and a stack of blankets.

can you see it?

chase was bound and determined to get it.

but I prevailed.

mom-1 point

chase-5 million points

i think we're making progress on this house which has catastrophies around every corner.

brennan's window well tried to flood on us again this week.

which meant sean was at home depot at 9:30pm on monday night after we wrestled all of the alligators into their beds, where he bought a 10 foot black ribbed tube to reroute the downspout off of the house until further notice.

it is currently still laying out across my flower beds and into the grass,

and i fully plan on planting my garden around it.

my children can smell that i can't move right now or enforce anything.

it's rough. REAL rough.

everything i do revolves around a bribe.

it's pretty awesome.

who wants to get in the car for a fruit snack?

want a bag of popcorn?

pick up the toys:)

if you go outside i will give you a popsicle.

it's just what 36 weeks pregnant is all about,

and i have absolutely no shame about it.

i only won this battle of the binky above out of sheer mc hammer can't touch this method.

the illusion of control, that's what we're fostering over here in the gibson home currently,

bahahaha!!!

send reinforcements.

or sonic ice.

i give you...

CLOSET BEFORE 

annnnnnnnd 

drum roll 

please......

CLOSET AFTER:)

would you look at that stuffed animal happiness over there?

also shown: Elsa, the doll that scares me in the night. freaky real. 

especially when you're coming around the corner.