My girls. I love them to pieces.

And sometimes, they can get along so well. But lately? Not so much.

I feel like every day I am playing referee over and over and over and over again. There is blaming and crying and arguing and “That’s not fair!” Occasionally, there is hitting.

I don’t remember fighting with my sister this much. I’m sure if I ask my mom, she will say we were just as bad – maybe even worse.

I ask them why they fight. My oldest says it’s because they are sisters and that’s what they do. And I know that she is right sorta. I don’t think that there’s many of us with siblings that can say that they didn’t ever fight.

It’s exhausting though. It seems like their favorites times to fight are when we have to go somewhere in the car or during the week getting ready for school. There are some days I am relieved to drop them off.

Like I said, I love them to death. And for the most part, they are good girls and we are very blessed. Lately though, I am just tired of being the referee for their fighting.

Maybe if I get a whistle they will stop?

In the past few months, I have been writing a lot more.  I am sending out query letters to magazines.  I have been published in our local woman’s magazine.  I have been working on my fiction.  And most of all, I am not hiding from my friends and family that I write.

I think that some people are surprised and maybe hurt that I never shared this part of me.  It wasn’t intentional.  I wasn’t trying to be mean or keep any secrets.  I just never was confident enough in my writing to share with the people that I see and talk to often.

Being a writer and letting people read your inner most thoughts is sort of like bearing your soul.  I leaves your feelings wide open.  And I have never really been one to share my feelings very much – even with my family.

But now, I have gained some confidence in my writing.  I have realized that I am a good writer and have something valuable to say.  So am sorry to my friends and family that felt I was hiding this from them.  I didn’t mean to be.

Here I am now, pouring out my heart, letting everyone know that I am a writer.

“Don’t you miss being pregnant?!?!”

That question always drove me nuts.  My girls are almost 7 and 5 now, so I don’t really get asked that anymore, but when I did, I would just roll my eyes.

With my first daughter, my pregnancy wasn’t too bad.  I was nauseous the first 3 months but it was bearable.  I was just super sensitive to smells.  I couldn’t even feed the dogs as the smell of dog food made me gag.

I didn’t really gain any weight with her.  Believe it or not, I wasn’t all that hungry.  Despite the lack of weight gain, my stomach almost instantly was full of stretch marks, or “battle scars” as I like to call them.  I was barely even showing when that happened.  I was less than thrilled.

It was exciting feeling my daughter move inside me, but sometimes towards the end of my pregnancy, it just felt uncomfortable and a little bit like an alien was inside me.

As I approached my due date, I waited for that “nesting period” to kick in where all I wanted to do is clean and get things ready for the baby.  Yeah, that never seemed to happen to me.  I could have used the burst of energy to get things ready.

My doctor induced labor when I was about 38 weeks.  After being in labor all day but not really progressing, I ended up with a c-section.

Overall it wasn’t a bad experience and I was looking forward to doing it again some day in the future.

When my oldest daughter was about 9 months old, we got a little surprise.  I became pregnant with our second daughter.  At first, I was in denial.  I must have taken about 6 home pregnancy tests, questioning my husband over and over again if he really saw the “+” sign.  Between the slew of positive tests and my nauseousness, there was definitely no denying I was pregnant.

At about 6 weeks, I had to break out the maternity clothes.  In the pictures from my oldest daughter’s first birthday party, there I am, in my maternity clothes.  I was a little embarrassed, like people would think that my husband and I were a couple of horn dogs that couldn’t keep their hands off of each other.

This pregnancy, I felt nauseous pretty much any time my stomach got too empty.  I even had to keep a can of Sprite in my desk at work in case I felt sick.  Let’s just say that the constant eating did not help my size, but it was either gain weight and feel better or feel like I was going to yak all the time.

I swelled up like a balloon.  My daughter was due in August, so I was huge right in the dead heat of summer.  I got so poofy.  I had to take off my rings and I could no longer wear shoes.  People joked at work that I had Fred Flintstone feet.  All I could fit into were flip flops.

I also had terrible acid reflux for most of my pregnancy.  Thank goodness the doctor okayed me to take heartburn meds.  Most of the time I had trouble sleeping because of how bad it was.  Before this, I had never even had acid reflux once.

On top of all of this, I was so tired all the time and it was hard to keep up with my oldest who was just barely a toddler.  Being pregnant this time was so different than the first time.  I couldn’t come home at the end of the day and just sleep or veg on the couch.  I had another child to care for and she was too little to really understand what was going on.  It was exhausting.

I had high blood pressure and my doctor monitored it closely, especially towards the end of my pregnancy.  I had non-stress tests about twice a week.  After a test when I was about 37 weeks, he told me I had preeclampsia and had to deliver right then.  I was walked over to labor and delivery and my c-section was scheduled for that afternoon.

My daughter and I were fine, and despite the preeclampsia, her birth was uneventful.  She was a great baby too.

After her birth, I would talk about how happy I was that my husband and I were done having children.  People would say, “Oh, but don’t you miss being pregnant?” or “Aren’t you sad you will never be pregnant again?”

Honestly, not at all.

Don’t get me wrong, I am very very thankful that I was able to get pregnant and have two healthy babies.  I know that I was very blessed in that respect.  I wouldn’t give up my girls for anything in the world and it was all totally worth it.  I just did not enjoy the nauseous, acid reflux, and swollen feet.

I often joke that I would have a third baby if I didn’t have to be pregnant.  I seriously think that there’s something to be said for having a stork deliver babies.

I can’t lie, I am not a fan of Christmas really. I mean, as a Christian, I celebrate the birth of Jesus, but the secular part I could really do without.

I dislike the retail push with all the commercials and just general “in your face” marketing.  It just gets worse every year too it seemed.  The kids were barely done trick or treating before the stores were putting out their Christmas displays.  What happened to Thanksgiving??

And the gift giving?  I hate trying to find the perfect gift for someone who already has everything just because I have to give them something.  Trying to figure out what to give my kids seems to get harder each year too and they are only 5 and 6.  They already barely play with what they have and now we are going to add more junk?

The holiday schedule drives me nuts at times.  I strive on routine and things being the same.  During the holidays you have different hours, a crazy calendar, and life is just not “normal”.  It can be exhausting.

When I met my husband, he was my perfect match in that he is sort of a grinch too.  Now that we have kids, we definitely put forth the effort.  He had to work Friday while I had the day off so I got out the tree, put it up, put on the lights, and had the girls decorate it.  I put a few holiday thinks up around the house.

I definitely do my best to make sure that my girls have a good holiday season despite my feelings but sometimes I wish the world would slow down and remember why we have Christmas in the first place.