Siiiiiiiiiiick

I am struggling through a cold right now and am feeling kind of rough.  We've been pretty fortunate on the illness front this winter but this little virus has found us and is making its way through the residents of our house. I am feeling particularly low and wretched this morning after a troubled night.  I think I am the most sick from this particular virus of all of us, either because I lack moral fiber or because I am with child and this virus is exacerbating the normal nasal congestion I get while pregnant. (Yet another of the weird, very common, largely inexplicable symptoms of pregnancy...) I don't think about my nose that frequently when I am not sick but boy, it sure is important, isn't it? Especially at night.  I can barely breathe through my nose, I've gone to bed before 9pm for the last three nights, and gosh, I just feel generally AWFUL.  I have in the past day broken down and started taking some OTC medicine.  I don't like to take anything when I'm pregnant (because heck, it turns out that even Tylenol, which is like the ONLY THING they say it is OK for pregnant women to take, can make bad stuff happen to your baby) but I am just too miserable without it. It is kind of ridiculous that a mere cold has flattened me so thoroughly and I know Rob wants me to pull myself together and function; hopefully I can do so soon.

I definitely need to be a little more functional by the end of the week because it is Grace's birthday on Sunday!  The actual thing that will require some functioning on my part is the party we are having for her and her little friends on Saturday. I still need to do a bit more planning.  Games? Cupcakes? Balloons?  I am going pretty low-key so I think that is about it.  Anybody have any great resources for party games for 5-year-olds?  I was going to let myself off the hook on the cupcakes and buy them but it turns out that cupcakes from a non-grocery-store bakery are quite pricey.  I am normally someone who bakes everything from scratch so I had no idea-- $2 to $3 per cupcake, or more, and I think I need 2 dozen. Oh well, it's not that much work.  I think I'm going to do these cupcakes with a cream cheese frosting.

My red hair is holding up quite well.  I am going on 3 weeks now and it still looks pretty good; I think I'm going to try to make it to 4 weeks before going over it again with more red.  This is an improvement over the other times I have done this when I had to put more Manic Panic on every 2 weeks.  The stylist who did the color said that she thought the brand she uses lasts longer, and then also I have stopped washing my hair every day since the last time I did this so I'm sure that helps.  I used to be a shampoo-every-day-without-exception kind of girl, but I started the baking soda/apple cider vinegar routine back in 2009 and it helped me not wash as often.  (In case you're curious, during our move and unpacking and all that, I went back to regular shampoo because it was too hard to mix up stuff or travel with the baking soda routine but I did stick with not washing everyday and just used conditioner on the other days.  After things settled down here in our new house I went back to baking soda and cider vinegar.)  I am still a shower-every-day-without-exception kind of girl, though; not even newborn babies can keep me from my daily shower.

I think I am about a week away from being in maternity clothes; my belly doesn't look particularly pregnant but my waistline is definitely disappearing and clothes are getting uncomfortable and tight.  This is about when I started wearing maternity clothes with Violet (11 or 12 weeks), and about a month earlier than I did with Grace, which is all normal and typical and whatnot (getting bigger faster with not-first pregnancies and whatnot).  I am happy that I started this pregnancy 15 lbs slimmer than I started Violet's, although of course I would have been happier if I'd gotten all the way down another 15-20 lbs to my pre-Grace weight.  Not that it matters at all as far as maternity clothes go because I GOT RID OF ALL OF IT before we moved to Utah.  So yeah, I'm not sure what I'm going to wear in another week.