blah blah blah

So I'm trying to keep the blog chugging along, mostly because it's the only record keeping I do for my kids and because I gain so much from going back and reading old posts. Plus, as much as I feel the need to go on hiatus, won't 3rd baby Ninness feel totally neglected? The reality is that baby could probably care less but I do know that Mary Kate loves her little shutterfly books I make the kids every year so maybe she'll love this too one day. Anywho, there are multiple things to blame on the lack o blogging. In no particular order:

• instagram. Many of my favorite bloggers have stopped typing and now make me stalk their lives via photo. I want to beg them to come back but am also enticed by how quick and easy instagram is.
• If I posted about the reality of life, it would be one long, drawn out post about how miserable I feel whilst pregnant. And that's just tacky for a multitude of reasons. I pretty much suck at suffering, prefering whining to gratitude and misery to perspective. But let me just say to all of you who love being pregnant, you are simply proof that God plays favorites.
• Thomas is a week shy of 9 months old and still wants mama's right hip all the time.
• Mary Kate has, for the first time in her entire little life, decided she too likes mama and wants to be cuddled and held frequently by me and mostly only me. It is sweet because it's new but not sweet because I'm tired and sick and I'm sure it's in reaction to the neediness of mama's little boy.
• We are in house hunting hell. I know inventory is low but how low can it go?!? (nerd.) The schizo voices in my head go something like this.
• If you want a house with the right square footage and not a total renovation with good schools, you must move to east egypt.
• But I don't want to move to east egypt. I value, mostly for the right reasons, access to the city, the friendships we've made. So we will just wait for something to come up. But the schools aren't as great (according to online "ratings", not personal experiences there). Does that make me selfish?
• But we can't wait too long because what if I go on bedrest again (50/50 shot). We definitely need the extra space then. And can we sell a house with a pool in the fall/early winter?
• But hasn't every generation prior to our "mcmansion" generation had multiple kids in small ranch houses? Is God asking us to live smaller? Or is He asking me to move to east egypt and trust that He'll meet our needs? Or is my desire for community and fellowship straight from Him?
• Holy cow, does your head hurt? Mine does. Over thinkers anonymous!
• I will write a whole post one day on the many ways this pregnancy rocked my world (ours, but a lot of it rocked me in personal ways). Clearly God thought there was some work to be done on ole Keri.
• Another reason to keep blogging is that in the midst of all my "life is so hellacious and miserable I can't lift my head up" thinking, I recently re-read some posts from last summer's bedrest. I was reminded of how much more hellacious it is to not be able to parent your babies. So, while not much will take me out of my "noone is more miserable than me" funk, those posts have made me think differently about the needlings. Knowing there's a chance I'll be bedbound again, I am jumping up a little faster to get the non-napping baby. I really am thankful to be ABLE to parent them, despite how hellacious it can be while in the throes of pregnancy.

Those are just some of the things/thoughts keeping me from sitting down to type- that and Thomas's one hour nap maximum (He and Mister Gates Raybon need to stop conspiring!) 

*too lazy to import instagram photos. Follow me there if you can't live without photos :)