Ngium: Chestnut Week 28

To recap this week:

Chin - Hand-foot-mouth Disease
Camille - a cold with a phlegmy cough and lots of green snot
My MacBook screen - officially dead
Childcare option - gone (more on this below)
My anticipated graduation date - might be pushed back a quarter or two
Hip pain - worsened
Number of exams I have this week - 2

Life around the Ng household this week has been like a rotten onion. We keep peeling and each layer is more putrid than the last. We are still laughing it off. :)

Technically, this is what's going on this week:

Chestnut is the weight of a Chinese cabbage - ~ 14.80 inches and 2.22 pounds (1 kg!).
He has his own regular intervals for sleeping and being awake.
The feet are just over 2 inches (5.5cm) long.
The hair on the head is now clearly visible.
The skin is wrinkled but will become less so as more subcutaneous fat, the layer of fat just under the skin, is laid down in the next few weeks.
The milk teeth have developed under the gums.
The eyes are starting to move in their sockets.
Uterine growth combined with increased maternal weight gain contribute to a recurrence of fatigue similar to that during the early weeks of pregnancy.

Physical:

Weight: 141 lb (+28)
Belly circumference: 38.75 in (+10.25)
Oy, it is hard to bend down to pick things up these days! I think Camille knows this...and therefore will try to drop as many things on the ground for me to pick up as possible.
I was thinking that I haven't been as "fat-faced" as I was with my pregnancy with Camille. Aaaand then this week came. I am fat-faced!
I thought averaging 6 hours of sleep a night a couple of weeks ago was bad. Then 5 hours last week. This week, I've been averaging about 4 hours a night. I'm not sure how I am still functioning...
Tuesday night was tough. Chin was up late vomiting off and on. He had a pretty bad reaction to the Vicodin given for his sore throat. Camille also woke up a couple of times and required me to rock her back to sleep (a very rare occurrence). Then I found out on Facebook that a 90-year-old former colleague from Macau had passed away in Scotland (we miss you, Uncle Don!). To top things off, I had a stomach ache that started at around 3am...around the time when I'd decided that I had enough studying for the night. The intense pain came in waves, just like contractions, and it kept going for nearly two hours. I knew in my mind that I was not in labor, but the pattern of pain was uncanny and it did get me started to think, "What if Marcus is coming tonight?!" He didn't, obviously. It was just something bad I had to poop out. And that took care of it.
I held off on taking docusate but I finally gave in while I was at the store this week and started taking it in the middle of this week. Wowee, what a difference! No more plunging the toilet after every time I drop the deuce in the upstairs bathroom!

Spiritual & emotional:

I get very little breaks while being in school full time and taking care of Camille the rest of the time. After Camille goes to bed (9:30ish) is when I have time to myself...to study. So sometimes, it completely pisses me off that after putting Camille down, Chin gets to play computer games, stays up until 2am reading baseball blogs, and complains the next day that he's tired. That is the end of my rant. Really.
I'm thinking more about how to shift things around in our house so that we can accommodate the two kids. Childcare is something that we still have not figured out yet. If Chin's mom comes up to help for an extended period of time, this may change how we arrange our furniture. Nonetheless, I'm having a good time looking up ideas on Pinterest...and not studying for the exams that I should be doing. :P
Wednesday night at 10pm, I received a call from Camille's daycare lady saying that she has taken a full time job outside the home and would like to terminate our childcare contract starting immediately. I know many of you may think she is so rude for not giving us a heads up. But we've been seeing this day coming. In the context of her family situation (and the Vietnamese culture), it isn't outside the realm of reason. Her husband recently had knee surgery and cannot work for the next 5+ months. She is the only income earner for their family of six. We have been so grateful to her for taking on the task of taking care of Camille while juggling her family responsibilities, too (she cooks 3 meals a day, does all the house work, goes to PTA meetings, and checks her kids' homework every night!). She has a lot going on. I only wish her the best with this new job.
I am so thankful for Chin's mom in coming up to help us on such short notice after our daycare option fell apart.
With everything that has been happening, I can't help but sense that there are deep spiritual implications for this mess. We are in prayer, trying to discern what it is that God is trying to tell us. I hope He tells us soon. I am ready for this week to be over!

Finally, a couple of pictures from earlier this week.