It’s been the ultimate “do as I say, not as I do” week. Dealing with a cold is not what I had time for. Instead of getting the sleep and taking it easy that I tell my boys is best, I had a week with tons to do and lots of places to be. So I pulled my big-girl britches as high as I could (over this big ol’ pregnant belly) and got to work. Man, did it catch up with me yesterday. I know my voice didn’t not sound good on the air, so thank you for stickin’ with me.

I plan to lay low this weekend and let my voice rest. (Which will require me to not talk, and that’s nearly impossible, but I’ll do my best.) There is ginger lemon tea with honey in my near future and hopefully a non-animated movie as well.

I toast you if you’re dealing with a spring cold too. It’s the pits.

Three months to go until Little Miss Imogene will join our testosterone-filled family. Twelve weeks … 90 days … 2,160 hours … but who’s counting?

Oh, how I’d love to be one of those women who loves being pregnant. But I am definitely not. I am very lucky and I know it. My pregnancies are really, for the most part, non-eventful. They are sort of by-the-book with no big surprises. But I get pregnant all over: my arms, my legs, probably my ears if I looked closely enough. And at 41, I’m well aware that it will take a little longer to get it off this time around. But also because I’m 41, I have a little more of a “this is me, take it or leave it” attitude. (I swear something happens at 40 when you just don’t sweat the small stuff anymore.)

We had given away our baby crib and our glider, because we weren’t going to do this again. (Yeah, that worked out well for us.)  So those things are making their way back into our house. Our storage area will soon be cleaned out, but not because of the huge garage sale I was going to have in May, but because that stuff will be making its way back up into our main living areas.  The pump, the bottles, the clothes and everything else that Imogene may need, it will all soon be washed and sanitized and organized.

I still can’t believe we get to do this one more time. It’s nothing short of blow-my-mind humbling, that’s for sure.

The movie Wonder is finally available to rent, so we got it over the weekend. We built a huge fort in the living room with blankets and couch cushions and stocked it up with cups filled with Arnie Palmers (iced tea and lemonade) and bowls filled with popcorn and Goldfish crackers. The boys were ready and I couldn’t wait to hit play. If you watch one movie with your kids this year, it should be this one. We talked all weekend about bullying and being different and about good friends. The conversations were especially great because even though the main character, Auggie, has a facial deformity, neither of my boys really saw it. They asked questions about why people were mean to him and laughed every time Chewbacca made a cameo in the movie.

There were so many parts of this movie that hit like a million-pound weight on my heart, but the one that stuck out the most was this: as parents, we try so hard to see our kids as individuals. We try to be fair with the quality time spent with each of them and with our interest level in the things they’re involved in, all the while celebrating the people they are and who they’re becoming. The last thing we want is for one of them to feel we don’t give them as much as we give the other one. Wonder told the story of a mom and a daughter who understood each other, respected each other, and loved each other, but because of life, they didn’t have the time together they would want in a perfect world.  I laughed a lot, smiled a lot, and loved a lot through this movie. I don’t want to give it away, but it was the theater scene between the mom and the daughter that had me wiping my face and asking the boys if they wanted more Arnie Palmers.

See this movie.

Oh, the healing power of chicken noodle soup and oranges. I truly believe in it.

Over the last couple weeks, I had double pink eye. I went to the doctor who said, “Well, it’s viral. So it’s just got to run its course like a cold would.” Within the next couple of days I got sicker and sicker, and I have a feeling that if I had gone back to the doctor, I would’ve been told that I had a sinus and ear infection.

To make matters worse, my husband was out of town all week for work. So my mom—because of course it doesn’t matter how old we are, our mommies worry about us—made me a gigantic pot of homemade chicken noodle soup. I ate it pretty much every day for lunch and dinner, and I went through bags of clementines and oranges. And for the most part, 10 days later I was feeling better. I got a couple nights of good sleep, and I finally felt human again. And I feel fantastic that my body worked hard at healing itself and I didn’t have to load up full of meds. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against ’em, but it was nice to do it naturally! So I’m healthy, just in time for both my boys to be up coughing all night. Of course!!

Here’s to your home staying somewhat healthy!

After a newscast on Thursday morning, Pat and I talked about Matt Lauer and the statement he released. We talked off the cuff a little, and I said that I couldn’t believe he was allowed to get away with what he did while working with such strong women. Then I got an email from a listener saying that I offended all women because I couldn’t believe he was “allowed” to do this, and then she invited me to rethink my statement.

Well I have … and I don’t take it back. Of the complaints that have been filed, not one of them has been from his co-anchors. They’ve been seen on the air the last two mornings barely able to speak and holding hands for strength from each other. The accusations have been from producers and assistants and many other women working behind the scenes trying to make it up the broadcast ladder. My question was: with such strong women within the organization—Katie Couric, Meredith Vieira, Ann Curry—how did he manage to hide this from them? And since, as it turns out, people did know about it and turned a blind eye, he was, by definition, allowed to get away with it. Did our listener actually think I was questioning why his victims allowed him to get away with it? Really?

I hope these incidents bring people—and women especially—together rather than making us point fingers at each other, comparing who’s more offended. Come on now.

As we get into the busiest time of our year, I thought I’d drop you a recipe to make your dinnertime a little easier. My kids (and the neighbor kids) eat up this fantastic mozzarella-stuffed meatloaf. My husband and I love it too. I’m gonna have to start doubling the recipe if I ever want to have any left for lunch the next day. In place of the ketchup, I use a can of no-salt diced tomatoes and it turns out great. I make my own bread crumbs with two pieces of bread or leftover hamburger or brat buns. Just toss ‘em in the Magic Bullet.

Here’s to dinner that the whole family eats at the same time, so you don’t have to be a short-order chef.

About two weeks ago, I learned that a high school friend passed away after having a cardiac episode. Craig was 41 years old. He had no signs of any problems at all. He and his son were quite the pair from what I saw on Facebook—always together—and it was obvious Craig was his hero.

I’m not one to sit and be sad, because I truly believe that at some point of our lives we find out the reasons for everything. Nothing is random or a coincidence. But, my biggest fear in life is leaving my babies way too soon, and that directly collides with what Craig’s son is now going through. So finding the “reason” is almost beside the point. I’m positive that there will be an “a-ha!” moment for Craig’s family when they’ll realize why he had to leave them on this earth. Probably something for his son that the boy wouldn’t have been able to do if Craig was still right beside him in the literal sense.

Craig loved country music, he did an insane George Bush impersonation, and he was so loyal. He was one of the first  to reach out when we had our last miscarriage. I mean … a guy … talking about pregnancy loss!

At the funeral, It was good to see high school friends. It was great to have four hours of time in the car with my best friend, since the funeral was out of town. It was nice to celebrate such a fantastic human being. The preacher said something that will stick with me forever: “Even if the world is going to end tomorrow, I will still plant my apple tree today.”

I’ll just let you digest that for a little bit. Now, go live it.