You guys.  I have so many, many things to tell you about and posts writing themselves in my head, and I can't keep track of them all.  I've been so very sick that I haven't even been able to sit at the computer and think in a straight line.  Only seven weeks left!  And if I'm still sick after this baby girl is born...well, sometimes it feels like that might be possible.  Like the vomiting will never end.

Oh well.

On to more fun and interesting things.  What to tell you first?

Well, first, I HAVE to brag on my two girls.  Liberty and Mercy have been amazing little kids these past nine months.  I mentioned in this post about how they are on alert all the time for ways to serve me.  They've figured out that when my body suddenly goes very still and I have a certain look on my face they'd better run for a bucket.  I don't have to say a word.  One girl tells the other girl, "Hurry!  Mommy needs a bucket!"  And they both take off running.  Whoever gets to the cabinet first grabs the bucket and runs back with it.  Whoever is second grabs a cup and fills it with water and runs it back to me.  Then they both get out of the room so they can't hear the sound effects, and the whole time they're running, they're praying out loud, "God, please help Mommy not throw up!  Please help her tummy to feel better!" 

A few mornings ago we were getting ready for school and work.  We were almost late, not quite, but I decided we'd better eat in the car.  So I dropped three bread slices into the toaster, and grabbed the egg carton out of the fridge.  In a cereal bowl, I scrambled one egg, microwaved it for 50 seconds, dumped the cooked egg onto a piece of toast and called it breakfast.  I scrambled a second egg into the bowl and pulled on the microwave door.  The door swung wide, knocking the glass cereal bowl out of my hand.  The bowl bounced off my belly, ricocheted into the stove top, flipped end over end until it shattered into tiny pieces on the stone tile floor.  I stood there in my work clothes staring dumbly down at the dripping, glassy mess on me and surrounding me and couldn't figure out what to do. 

At this point, two little girls came running into the kitchen to see what all the noise was about.  Four-year-old Mercy surveyed the damage and looked up at me with great compassion.  She reached one hand out to touch my arm and comfortingly said, "It's okay, Mommy.  Sometimes, things like this happen at my school, too."

"Yes," six-year-old Liberty agreed.  "Mommy, we'll clean this up.  You're not supposed to bend down.  Okay, here's what we'll do.  Mercy, you pick up the glass, and I'll wipe up the eggs."

"I don't want to pick up the glass," Mercy calmly stated.

"Okay, I'll pick up the glass and you wipe up the eggs."

"I don't want to wipe up the eggs."

"Here's the deal, Mercy," Liberty actually used those words, and if I hadn't been about to cry at that moment I would have had trouble keeping my laughter to myself, "someone HAS to pick up the glass, and someone HAS to wipe up the eggs.  Now which one are you going to do?"

Mercy decided to pick up the glass, but she would only touch pieces that were not completely slimy with egg.  While the girls worked on the floor, I worked on cleaning myself and my clothing.  After a few minutes, I realized this huge job would not be finished for quite a while, and so I told the girls that we would have to leave the mess to get to school and work on time.  "But Mom," Liberty said incredulously, "the germs!"

"I know, honey, but there's nothing we can do right now.  We'll work on it when we get home this afternoon."

"Okay, but first let me cover it with a towel in case Daddy gets home first so he won't accidently walk on it."

I had no energy to respond, and covering it all with a towel seemed like a reasonable idea.  Liberty sped off to the linen closet and came back with about 45 tiny towels.  She then proceeded to cover the entire floor with itty bitty towels like a patchwork quilt.  I thought about stopping her, but she was being so helpful and so independent.  What's another load of laundry, anyway?  A small price to pay for the happiness serving brought to my daughter.

We drove to school with two girls discussing the pros and cons of various cleaning ideas to employ in the afternoon.

That afternoon, they picked up their conversation just where they'd left off in the morning, and when we pulled to a stop inside the garage, they both jumped out and headed to the kitchen without me.  Liberty found that the towels stuck to the floor but by pulling hard she could pry up the dried egg and the glass too.

I had them place all the towels into a large bowl for Daddy to inspect and decide on when he got home from work because I just wanted to throw them all away but didn't want to trust my own judgment at the moment.  Then we swept all the remaining dried egg and glass shards into the dust pan and emptied them into the garbage.  When Daddy got home, he made the executive decision to toss the towels into the garbage.  Thankfully, Liberty had chosen all of our "spill towels" to clean this mess -- we keep a collection of towels that have all but disintegrated into rags to be used whenever something spills.  Then Daddy mopped the floor with steaming hot soapy water, and everything was back to normal.

Everything, that is, except for my respect for my daughters which had increased considerably (as you can plainly see by the photo below).