Jason and Amber G.

Success

2012-02-03T16:54:00.003-05:00

Genevieve is cranky after her surgery, but fine. We almost never give her juice, but they recommended giving it to her after her surgery to keep her hydrated, and she's drinking it like it's her job.

The doctor said her adenoids were enlarged and appeared to be infected; so I feel like we made the right choice. Hopefully she'll stop getting so many sinus and ear infections now.

The doctor also replaced both of her ear tubes. He said that the hole was slightly larger after taking them out; so he had to use a different shape tube. He said that a lot of doctors actually use that shape tube to start with though; so it wasn't really a bad thing.

I hope this all was worth it and that she enjoys a long period of good health.

Adenoids and Tubes

2012-02-02T18:41:00.001-05:00

My Vieves has to get one of her ear tubes replaced and her adenoids taken out. Her surgery is tomorrow morning, 8:30am. My poor little baby :(

All dressed up for Christmas

2012-01-11T13:19:00.001-05:00

Three of my favorite four girls, all dressed up for Christmas.

My big girl loves dresses and skirts, but she HATES getting her hair done
and will rip it out almost immediately. SIGH.

Mom, I am so over getting my picture taken.

Pia, my niece.

2012

2012-01-10T10:42:00.001-05:00

I can't believe 2012 is here already. And not only that, but today is my, ahem, 29th birthday.

I'm hoping it's a lasting phase, but I'm camera happy again. I think I've gotten better, and I'm at least somewhat happy with a bunch of the shots I've gotten of the girls recently.

This first one has G's face slightly out of focus if you zoom in, but I think she looks adorable anyway.

I think this one captures A's sweetness.

Neither of these pictures have been edited at all. These are the original JPEGs that came out of the camera. My recent frustration with my pictures is really that I'm not good at post-processing them. I see the shots that our professional photographer friend has taken, and they are awesome. And I know that some of that is due to his mad photoshop skills. He manages to make the skin tones look right while making the other colors pop and everything look crisp in a way I love. I honestly think that some of my recent pictures have a lot of potential. So I've signed up for a photoshop class. I'm excited for it.

Hopefully this will mean I do a better job posting pictures to the blog as well :)

75

2011-12-21T09:56:00.001-05:00

My Grandpa would have been 75 today. I still can't believe he's gone, and I still miss him every day.

Birthday Wishes

2011-09-28T15:16:00.002-04:00

I've been asking Annabella what she wants for her birthday off and on for the past couple of weeks. Invariably, she says something about food. The most recent:

Me: Annabella, what do you want for your birthday?
Jason: Do you want cookies or cupcakes or brownies? (she'd been oscillating between those choices)
A: Brownies
Me: What else?
A: Ice cream
Me: Yes, we'll have brownies and ice cream, but we have to have something else. We can't just eat brownies and ice cream.
A: Brownies and ice cream and brownies.
Me: OK. We'll have brownies and ice cream and brownies, but we have to have something else. How about pizza? Or hot dogs?
A: No, I want brownies and ice cream and brownies.
Jason: How about spaghetti or pizza? (we often have to repeat options at this age)
A: No, I want brownies and ice cream and brownies.
Jason: How about bunnies and cheese? (bunny-shaped macaroni and cheese)
A: Yes. Bunnies and cheese and bunnies and brownies and ice cream and brownies.
Me: Okay. Well that's what we'll have then. Bunnies and cheese and bunnies and brownies and ice cream and brownies.

You'll never guess what she asked for for breakfast this morning after I sang her happy birthday :)

I think it's safe to say she's looking forward to dinner tonight. Here's hoping she likes her presents too.

3 years old

2011-09-28T15:10:00.002-04:00

My dearest Annabella,

Today you turn 3 years old. Three! I can hardly believe it. And yet here we are. We have officially exited the terrible twos (you hear that, Boo, you can stop being so stubborn all the time now...) You are able to do more and more every day. I'm starting to get glimpses about who you are, who I think you'll be, and I'm just so excited for you.

This past year has been a big year for us, but I think the biggest change for you has been getting used to your little sister. Watching you two learn to play together is so sweet, and so frustrating (you can knock off all the fighting now too, please...) I love how you want to give her hugs and kisses and play peek-a-boo with her, but I just wish you knew how to do those things without smothering her and knocking her over. I love how you share your toys with her, but I wish that you'd share all your toys with her, not just the rejects you've decided you don't want at that moment. But really, you two are great together. Nobody can make Genevieve laugh like you can, and I know you're a great big sister, and that you two will be such great friends one day.

You are very sweet-natured. When G pulls your hair, you say, "don't pull my hair baby". Or when she pinches you, you say "don't pinch my skin". And can I say that I'm very thankful that your first inclination isn't to just sock her. You are very cooperative with your daycare teachers (though I've heard that they've seen your stubborn streak a little more recently right around nap time.) You love to sing and we can often hear you singing quietly to yourself in your carseat. You whisper when you are uncomfortable.

You are starting to understand the world, to remember things, to grow up. Watching you watch movies melts my heart, because I see you light up and laugh at the funny parts. If I say that we can do X after Y, then when we finish Y, you ask about X.

You love scissors, sweeping the floor and using the dustpan, coloring, reading books, swimming, Monkey Joe's, the park, the ball pit, Little Mermaid, CinderBella, Shrek, getting snuggles, cooking with us, getting and wiping off kisses, and playing with stuffed animals (especially putting them to bed).

I can't wait to see what this year brings. There are so many things I want to do with you, and you are right on the cusp of being able to do them.

Mommy loves you to the moon and back. Just don't grow up too fast.

Who stole my baby?

2011-09-20T13:38:00.003-04:00

Genevieve,

I know it doesn't seem possible, but you turn 1 year old today. Where did the time go, you ask? Well, Mommy doesn't know. To Mommy, you are still my tiny little baby. My tiny little baby that weighs more than just a little bit, who your Daddy and I affectionately call "El Hefto". My tiny little baby who says Momma and Dadda and bye bye and all done and others that we've lost track of and signs more and all done and milk and walks and laughs and wrestles with your sister and jumps off the slide and wants nothing more to be a big girl like your big sister.

How did this happen? How did my tiny (ok, you were never tiny, little miss 9lbs and 1oz at birth) little baby turn into a full-blown toddler?

We've had a rough year, you and I. With Mommy battling some rough postpartum depression and then losing Grandpa, Mommy hasn't always been able to enjoy or love on you as much as I would have liked. And for that I am truly sorry, Genevieve. But I want you to know that your Mommy loves and adores you to bits and pieces. And I am so incredibly proud of you.

I love you, Stink Butt, to the moon and back.

Momma

December 21, 1936 - August 18, 2011

2011-09-07T22:35:00.000-04:00

He squeezed you like he meant it when he hugged.

He grew the best tomatoes.

He could be silly, even at the end. (I so wish I had my camera when he showed the girls how to go down the twisty slide at the park.)

He stored trash bags and paper towels in his 800 pound safe.

He loved to eat, but wouldn't touch something if he knew it had butter in it.

He was the hardest worker I've ever known, working 70 hours a week until the cancer and chemo forced him to stop.

He was handy.

He watched Lifetime movies.

He adored his grand babies. Nothing made him happier than holding them.

He could talk your ear off on the phone.

He was brave, never letting on how much pain he was in.

His garden was always immaculate.

He was a hunter, a farmer, a maintenance worker, a trolley driver, a gardener, and a truck driver.

He loved his sisters, and still called Patsy his baby sister. He tried to keep his siblings together when times got tough after his parents left them, and he worked to reunite them later.

He had true and loyal friends, the kind who drop everything to help you load stuff up and do whatever they can when they hear the bad news.

He bounced me on his knee when I was little, and asked me who his little boy was. When I'd say "Grandpa, I'm not a boy", he'd ask where his monkey was. When I'd say "Grandpa, I'm not a monkey!", he'd exclaim, "Sure you are. I see your curly tail!"

He taught me how to add.

He killed the biggest spider I've ever seen (that wasn't in a cage.) That spider can still make me shudder.

He showed his love by giving you produce from his garden, seeds, and plants. And when he said he'd give you some turnips, you'd end up with a grocery bag full of turnips. If he gave you tomatoes, you'd go home with 30 or 40 pounds of tomatoes.

He believed in putting 100 cans of everything back each year.

He was my Grandpa. And I miss him.

Yay Babies!

2011-07-20T13:47:00.003-04:00

My newest niece was born this morning, at 6:47 am. She weighed in at 6 lbs, 5.4 oz. She's 19 inches long. And she's absolutely beautiful.

No, I don't have a name yet. My Mommy and Daddy are working on it.
When they're not too busy grinning and looking at me, that is.

Doesn't Mommy look so pretty? She's just birthed me, and she still looks fantastic.

Congrats Jake and Lynn on your new addition. We are so happy for you, and we love your little peanut already.

Pictures

2011-06-08T22:01:00.002-04:00

As promised, here are a few pictures. The bottom 2 of are my Grandpa. Now off to bed for me.

My girls

2011-06-06T10:22:00.002-04:00

Genevieve's super mobile and is pulling up to a stand. She's not exactly crawling, more like doing this bear walk. Oh, and she's giving zerberts! So cute! And she has her first tooth. My little baby's growing up, and I'm so proud of her.

Pretty much every time I take Genevieve to the store, I'll feel her nuzzle into my shoulder, and then 10 seconds later somebody comes up to me to tell me that she's just smiling away at them. And then they say, "And she's got dimples!" Each time the person talking to me is so surprised that Genevieve is so smiley and happy. She loves people though, especially when she's safely in Momma's arms.

Annabella is getting so big. We took her to the pool yesterday, and she was able to walk all around the kiddie pool without help. Last year she would have drowned had we not been there to help her. She's still pretty entrenched in the terrible twos, but I can see little signs that she's coming out of them. She's still my snuggle bear, and she gives the best hugs and kisses.

Annabella might be giving up her daily nap though. I don't think she took one either day this weekend. She was still in her crib at nap time, but we don't think she slept at all. Then she was of course super grouchy by the end of the day. And whoo boy was she in a mood this morning! But she'll still get nap time at daycare; so hopefully that will help her catch up on sleep.

I will try to update with some videos and pictures soon. The last few months have been pretty rough for me personally, and I've also been extra super busy at work. But I know that I've been neglecting the blog. So I will try to do better.

Wow I've been neglecting this blog

2011-05-11T22:25:00.000-04:00

I switched jobs a couple months back (same company, different responsibility), and that has seriously decreased my blogging time. I love my new job, but I'm way busier than I was. Most of my blogging happens during downtime at work. Now that I have no downtime, I'm not sure how frequently I'll be able to update.

We're good. This spring has been super hectic. We're trying to trek to Ohio every few weeks to see Grandpa, which makes for a lot of travel. We're also getting ready to go on vacation soon, and I'm throwing a baby shower in the next few weeks as well.

The girls are great. Genevieve is crawling and starting to pull up on things. She's showing her personality more and more, and whoa buddy I think she's going to give us a run for our money soon. She's determined and persistent when she wants something, and she gets oh so mad when you take something away from her. She loves kisses, and she's starting to snuggle a little here or there (though you still only get a few seconds most times). She's a lot of fun.

Annabella is still my snuggle bunny. She wants Mama to hold her for minutes on end. She also wants her independence though, and is constantly pushing her boundaries. We play a new game. I give her kisses, and she wipes them off. So I kiss her ears and her belly button and say I buried them and she'll never get them off. And now she does it back to me. I must say, I'm loving all the extra kisses, even if ear kisses are a little weird.

Here's what you all come here for:

Unbeknown to me, Annabella is sharing a piece of grass with her sister.

Genevieve is less than pleased.

Mommy notices Genevieve has grass and asks Annabella to take it from her. Annabella obliges. Mommy thinks how sweet it is for Annbella to watch out for her little sister like this and to help Mommy out. Unfortunately for Boo, the pictures caught the real story.

A Quick Confession

2011-04-28T20:46:00.002-04:00

I am unreasonably excited about the royal wedding tomorrow. I'm so tempted to get up at 4am to start watching the coverage, but alas, I will be recording it for future viewing.

We're ok

2011-04-18T10:00:00.003-04:00

I guess the tornadoes this past weekend were relatively close to us, one even touching down in downtown Raleigh. But we were blissfully unaware of any danger and went on with our lives like nothing was happening. There was some pretty intense hail, and the storm was loud enough to wake the kids up from their naps. But that was all the drama we saw.

Hopefully next time it storms like that one of us will realize that we should turn on the stupid radio to make sure we don't need to head down to the basement. Parents of the year here.

Grandpa Murphy

2011-04-14T22:27:00.004-04:00

My grandfather is dying. He met with the doctor a week ago Tuesday, and the doctor told him it was time to stop treatments and call in hospice care. The doctor estimated his remaining time as 2 months.

Jarrod and I and our families made the trek to Ohio to see him this past weekend.

I can't begin to tell you how much my grandfather means to me, or how much I'm going to miss him. But the thing that hurts my heart the most is knowing that my kids and my niece won't realize or remember how much he adores them. Because if there's anything my grandfather loves, it's his grand babies.

(Pictures were stolen from Jarrod's wife, Amy's, website.)

Post-Surgery, Doing Well

2011-03-30T16:54:00.002-04:00

Genevieve did not care for surgery at all, but she's doing really well now. She took a giant nap immediately after that, and she's been a little fussy today, but that's it. So yay!

I'm really hoping tubes work as well for her as they have for Annabella. They were life-changing for her, really.

Tubes for G

2011-03-28T12:06:00.002-04:00

We took Genevieve to the ENT today. She's had 4 ear infections since Jan 23, and even though today is her 7th day on antibiotics, her ear still has puss in it.

So she will be getting tubes put in her ears on Wednesday.

I'm not as frightened as I was with Annabella. I know the tubes for Annabella were little miracles for us and that she's been much healthier and happier since she got them (not to mention she can actually hear now.) So I think having been through it once before is making it easier.

But still... I'm really not looking forward to leaving my tiny baby behind for her first surgery. I'm guessing it would be more traumatic to actually be in the room with her, but I really wish they would just let me go in to hold her hand through it all.

Potty Training!

2011-03-16T10:07:00.002-04:00

We started potty training Annabella this past weekend. We'd tried before, a few months before Genevieve was born, but she just wasn't quite ready then. I think she was probably ready awhile ago now, but we chose to wait because getting a new little sister is just such a big transition. But recently Annabella has started requesting diaper changes instead of fighting them, and we took that as a sign that it was time.

So far it's going really well, and I'm really proud of my little girl. Seeing her running around in her big girl panties makes me ache for the baby she was, smile at the big girl she's become, and wonder what the future holds.

Annabella Grace

2011-03-12T21:41:00.006-05:00

I've been promising to post pictures of the kids for awhile. Here are some of Annabella.

Genevieve Claire

2011-03-12T19:47:00.002-05:00

I've been promising to post some pictures for awhile now. Here are some of our newer ones of Genevieve.

Still here.

2011-03-09T11:41:00.002-05:00

I'm still alive. Really. I know it's been forever since I've posted.

The girls are good.

Genevieve is rolling over (front to back only still) and sitting up and working towards crawling. She's a sweet, happy baby who smiles at everybody and has an infectious laugh. She also has her third ear infection. I think tubes are in our near future with her.

Annabella is teaching me what the terrible twos are all about. She must think I'm a slow learner, because she's really drilling in that lesson. She's enough to wear me out, even on a good day. But her hugs brighten my days, her smile makes me smile, and I'm proud of her even when she's difficult.

I know there's more to say. It's been a busy month or so. But at least that's a start.

Hey, at least she's wearing socks.

2011-01-28T09:50:00.003-05:00

I'm not sure Annabella understands the concept of favorite yet. If you ask her what her favorite color is, she'll look at you blankly. But I would bet dollars to doughnuts that her favorite color is blue. Whenever we let her choose her plate, she always goes for the blue one if available. And we have to watch her to make sure she doesn't pull the blue one out of the dishwasher when it's dirty. She seems to prefer the blue balls over the others, and she loves her cupcake outfit with the blue pants.

So really, when I saw 2 pairs of dirty socks lying at the bottom of the stairs this morning, I should have stopped what I was doing right then to grab them up and hide them. Especially because she'd already worn the blue snowman ones twice. And because she was wearing green and white. But I didn't. I was busy and I didn't think Annabella had noticed them.

20 minutes later:

Me: Annabella, time to put your shoes and socks on. (Grabbing her clean white socks and trying to put them on).

Annabella: (Trying to rip them out of my hands.) No white socks! Blue socks! NO WHITE SOCKS! BLUE SOCKS!

I could pretend that I stuck to my guns and decided that a third wearing of the blue snowman socks was completely inappropriate. But you know what, it just wasn't worth the battle. Wearing dirty socks isn't going to kill her, even if they seriously clash with her outfit.

Buttered Toast

2011-01-17T11:48:00.003-05:00

Toast Story #1:

Annabella loves this song, Fire Truck by Ivan Ulz. She sings it all the time. "Fire truck, fire truck, I want to ride in a fire truck!" So cute.

Well today, she asked for toast for breakfast. After the bread finished toasting, she asked "Butter?". So I assured her that yes, I was putting butter on her toast and bringing her buttered toast. So she started singing "Buttered toast, buttered toast, I want to ride in a buttered toast!".

Besides being all sorts of adorable, I'm really excited to see her starting to play around with songs and mixing up words.

____________________________

Toast Story #2:

About a month ago I was trying to get Annabella to eat a snack. I knew she was hungry, but I couldn't get her to agree to anything. I know that seriously buttered toast is one of her favorites, so I asked her over and over again if she wanted toast.

Mommy: Annabella, do you want some toast?

Annabella: No toast! No toast!

M: You sure?

A: NO TOAST!

M: OK, you don't have to eat toast. What about (any other appropriate option)?

A: No.

5 minutes later:

M: You want some toast sweetie?

A: No toast, no toast!

M: (Still racking my brain, what can I get her to eat).

3 minutes later:

M: How about some toast?

A: No toast, no toast!

M: Well, I'm going to make you some toast anyway. You don't have to eat it though.

A: No toast, no toast!

2 minutes later:

A: (Trying to get Mommy to come do something)

M: Sorry sweetie, Mommy's busy buttering your toast.

A: No toast. No toast. NO TOAST!

M: (Walking toast to Annabella at the table)

A: NO TOAST!

M: (Sets toast in front of Annabella at the table).

A: (Looks at toast, tilts her head to the side, and smiles).

A: TOAST!

And with that, she ate up all her toast.

To add even more insult to injury...

2011-01-06T12:49:00.002-05:00

It's bad enough that I turn 29* on Monday.

Over Christmas break I found a white hair.

And today I lost the ability to drive without glasses. Stupid tiny letters on stupid eye tests.

*again

Grandpa

2010-12-14T13:13:00.003-05:00

I've been meaning to write a post about my girls and how much I love them and how much they love each other. That will have to wait for another day.

I just learned that my Grandpa's cancer is back. He has a spot on his lung and his neck. We felt the spot on his neck at Thanksgiving and just hoped it was an infection.

I guess the chemo is a one-time thing; so he can't do that again. He just finished a round of radiation for a spot near his stomach, and that took so much out of him. But radiation is what they're talking about doing again.

I'm scared. I don't want to lose my Grandpa.

He just called me this past weekend and left a voicemail saying how good he felt, that he hadn't felt this good in 2 years. Hearing that made my heart soar.

And now this. I feel like the rug has been pulled out from under me.

Smiley

2010-11-05T16:03:00.006-04:00

Genevieve is the most smiley baby I've ever seen.

I love you too, Boo

2010-10-25T21:05:00.002-04:00

Today was a special day. A day I've waited for for over 2 years. I told Annabella I loved her. And she said it back. I couldn't tell what she was saying, but Jason heard it and he was right. I said, "I love you" and she said "I uv oo". I still wasn't sure; so I said "I love Annabella, and I love Dadda", and she said "I uv Dadda".

So awesome.

Now I can't wait to hear it again.

Whoa baby!

2010-10-21T10:11:00.002-04:00

The numbers are in, and Genevieve is officially huge. She weighed in today at 11 lbs 10 oz (97th percentile), and she was 22 inches long (85th percentile). She's averaging a gain of over 1 oz per day! Oh, and while we're on the subject of impressive numbers, I should mention that Genevieve slept for 7.5 hours straight last night. So we think everything is going really well with her, and the doctor agreed with us today at her 1 month checkup.

Annabella's 2 year checkup was Tuesday, and she's doing great as well. She's still a peanut, but she's staying on her growth curve and the doctor says she's fine. She's graduated to getting weighed with clothes and using the manual scale. So with that, she weighed just under 23 lbs. And she was 32 inches tall. The pediatrician seems to be especially skilled with kids her age, and he had her pretty well entertained through most of the appointment...at least until the shots, which she did not care for at all.

Jason and I are doing okay as well. We're both pretty exhausted. You'd think that with our little one sleeping for 7.5 hours straight we'd be doing better, but Annabella is still waking us up at night. I can't really blame her for having a hard time sleeping right now. With a new baby sister, a new class at daycare, and her 2-year molars pushing through, she's got plenty of reasons to not be able to stay asleep the whole night through. Jason wants to sleep train her again in a couple of months. I'm really hoping she'll just work through all this and start sleeping better on her own by then. I hate hearing my baby yelling at night and not going to her, and I think we've had mixed success with it before.

Baby's stirring. I'll try to post pictures soon, but I gotta run now!

19 days out

2010-10-09T21:14:00.006-04:00

Sorry for the long delay in updates.

Being a Mommy to 2 beautiful girls is wonderful and exhausting, all at once. I'm finding myself feeling surprisingly content, just happy to be experiencing all of this. And my confidence is much higher the second time around. I feel like I know what I'm doing, and I'm not afraid to be alone with Genevieve (unlike with Annabella, where I was terrified to be alone with her, not sure I'd be able to handle it.) It helps that Genevieve is a ridiculously easy baby. She's a great sleeper, eats well, is awake, happy, and smiley for long periods of time, and she's growing well. I thought at the time that Annabella was an easy baby because she was a happy baby. I still don't think Annabella was a hard baby exactly, but Genevieve is much easier.

Another difference the second time around is how much I let Genevieve cry. With Annabella I would jump to run towards her at the first little whimper. With Genevieve, I don't feel like her crying is an emergency. I think this is both good and bad. It means that I'm calmer and not as stressed out, which I think keeps Genevieve calm overall. But it also means that I'm not responding to her needs as quickly, and I don't like that. Plus, with Annabella, her cry would cause a painful physical reaction in my body, and that just doesn't really happen with Genevieve, at least not to the same extent. So my Mommy guilt is all flared up over that.

I still don't have my energy back though, and I'm easily tired. A trip to the park today with my Mom and both my girls left me so tired I had to nap. And while I was out with Jason on a short walk last night I got so tired I had to sit down for awhile just to get the strength up to walk home. But each day is getting better.

Unfortunately, I think the lack of energy has had a detrimental effect on my bonding with Genevieve. I remember wanting nothing more than to just hold Annabella while I was in the hospital, and with Genevieve, I was too weak and shaky. I loved her and wanted to want to hold her, but I was afraid I would drop her. Even when I did hold her, I wanted Jason or somebody else close by in case I got shaky. And now that I'm home, I have to spend so much time resting and taking care of Annabella that I just don't get as much snuggle time in as I'd like.

All of this is making me consider extending my maternity leave, to give me more time to recover and also to spend with just her, when I have more energy to really appreciate her. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that I don't love her fiercely, because I do. But maybe a little more time would be good. I still have 3 weeks left of standard maternity leave though; so I still have lots of snuggle time ahead of me. Plus, even after those 3 weeks, I'm not planning to go back full time for a little while longer. So right now I'm just playing it by ear.

In other news, we went to the pediatric cardiologist this past Monday. Genevieve's heart murmur is caused by a ventricular septal defect, which the cardiologist assured us was really no big deal at all. The defect is basically a small hole (about 2mm wide) in the wall between the 2 ventricles, and will most likely close up as she grows older. The doc said that even if it doesn't close up on its own, the VSD shouldn't cause her any long term problems. He said that she could be a champion athlete even if the hole doesn't close up. He also said that VSDs are very common in babies, happening in about 1 out of every 200 births. So no big deal. And we most likely will not even need to take her back to the cardiologist. The doc said that if the pediatrician still hears the murmur after her 6 month check, then the pediatrician might decide to send us back, but we don't need a follow-up until at least then.

Annabella is still adjusting to her new baby sister, and also to her transition to the 2s room at daycare. I see signs of stress with her here and there (like crying before bedtime and laying down at odd times at daycare), but in general she's doing really well. Jason and I both strive to spend time with her and to really focus on her when we're with her, and I think that's helping. I expected it to be a lot worse than it is, honestly, but I still worry about her. I think having grandparents around to help has been good for her too. She seems to like the extra attention.

OK. It's late, and I'm rambling. I can't promise I'll post again soon as it's taken more energy than I expected just to get this up, and I don't think it's all that coherent. But I'll try :)

2 years!

2010-09-28T20:43:00.004-04:00

Annabella,

Two years ago today, I first held you in my arms. I kissed the top of your head, and fell in love with you instantly. You were my girl, and I was your Mommy. Just like that.

Those first few weeks with you were some of the hardest, and sweetest, times of my life. I remember being at the hospital, and just needing to hold you. You were such a noisy little sleeper, but I couldn't stand to have you away from me. And oh how you liked to be held. Nothing made you happier, it seemed. I remember lamenting to the pediatrician how you would wake up as soon as we laid you down, and I remember being aggravated when he remarked how that was a good thing, having a sure fire way to wake you up. I remember learning to nurse you, and watching the clock to make sure you were nursing enough, carefully documenting how much you ate and when. I remember delighting in dressing you in your little outfits, and seeing how cute you looked in each and every one of them. I remember being so sleepy that I fell asleep, for an instant, standing up while holding you. I remember forcing myself to stop staring at your eye lashes in the middle of the night and instead watch the TV, because I was so afraid to fall asleep holding you, and while your eye lashes were in fact enchanting, the TV would do a better job keeping me awake.

Over the next few months you morphed from newborn to infant, and soon you were rolling over, sitting up, and playing. We would sit you up and put your giant Winnie the Pooh behind you, so that you would land on it when you would inevitably tip over. It seemed that no matter the number of pillows we propped up, you would find a hard place to land. I think those thunks have stayed with me longer than they've stayed with you. Soon we bought squishy mats to put down, and you played on those for awhile. But you started to be able to get around, in a weird kind of scoot. You seemed unwilling to do anything that would get you into a crawl-like position, because you couldn't yet get back to a sitting position. But you would stretch out and go back to sitting, and somehow you would make progress across the room in this way.

Then came the crawling (soon after you learned how to sit from a laying down position.) For awhile, we thought you would just skip crawling. But then when you started crawling, you had a perfect little textbook crawl. I would sit back a few feet from you, and you would slowly crawl towards me, and my heart would swell. Soon you were a champion crawler, you'd move so fast. We have many pictures of you crawling towards us, with your hands moving up towards the camera, only inches away.

And soon you were walking. A few steps here and there(Dada got to see the first ones, of course). You had a push-toy, and you loved that thing. You weren't the best at steering it at first, but you would get behind it and go go go. And about a month later, on Halloween, Daddy and I were sitting about 5 feet from each other, and you would walk between us. Five feet was a bit much for you, and we were so proud when you'd make the distance. After making it a few times, you seemed to realize there was nothing stopping you, and you started to curve around in order to go farther. That night, you truly started walking. You went from something like 7 consecutive steps to 28 in one night. By the end of the weekend, we'd quit counting. I think we got to 63 before we decided that you were basically unstoppable.

Then came the talking. Watching you learn to talk has been so much fun. I love hearing you say new words. Yes, sometimes being Mommy to a toddler can be super frustrating. And now that you have words, you are always trying to exert your independence. So we battle over putting your toothbrush away or taking off your PJs or sitting while you eat or any number of other things. And while there are days that I just want to shake you and say that Mommy is trying really hard to do what you want if you could just figure out what it is that you want, I have to say that part of me loves the battles. I love seeing you express yourself, and say what you want. And the times I'm most frustrated are the times I see you struggle because you just don't know what it is that you want. (And no, you do not always get what you want... But those times are still easier than when you just can't decide.)

Now you are running, and learning to jump, and trying to skip, and climbing all over the furniture, and making me proud every day. I love you so much, and I'm so happy to be your Mommy.

And today, even though it was your birthday, I think you gave us the better present. Before today, you would sing along to a song, but only for one word (such as "ashes" in Ring Around the Rosie, or "Row" in Row Row Row Your Boat). You could express which song you wanted, but only because we have our language. Today you sang Happy Birthday, and it was awesome. You sang it to yourself, and you sang it to each of us.

You are my perfect little girl, and I love you so much my heart swells just thinking about you.

Love today and always,

Mommy

My week so far

2010-09-24T19:56:00.004-04:00

Sorry I haven't been updating or returning phone calls and such. This week has been both really good and really hard. Giving birth to Genevieve has ravaged my body, and the subsequent blood loss has zapped all my reserves of strength. I appreciate all the good wishes people have been sending my way, but I really haven't had the energy to respond.

Genevieve is a great baby. And so far, it seems that she is a much better sleeper than Annabella was. She has so many periods of extended wakefulness, and she's so aware through them. She's also so strong. She lifts her head and moves it around and just looks around, taking it all in. She seems a couple weeks older than she is. Maybe this is because she spent an extra week baking inside Momma.

Annabella is quickly turning into a great big sister. I still see flashes of panic/stress/unhappiness, but all in all, she's taking having a new little sister in stride. The first night was admittedly rough, and she had a couple meltdowns. But at the end of the night she blew Genevieve a kiss and said "Bye bye baby". Jason and I almost cried, the moment was so sweet. Since then, she's given the baby kisses and petted her head and been really pretty great. Annabella's also poked at her eyes, elbowed her head, and tossed her leg over Genevieve's neck. All of these were unintentional or at least without malice, and she looks troubled when she realizes she's upset the baby. So I'm hoping that things continue to get better, and that Annabella gets more and more comfortable realizing that Mommy or Daddy can't always hold her, and that sometimes we have to spend time with the baby. Annabella also lights up with excitement whenever she first sees or hears the baby when she gets home from daycare. I'm sure this will not continue forever, but it's sweet to see.

I will probably post a birth story at some point in the future, but the summary is that it was pretty uneventful overall. I was given pitocin to start labor, made pretty good progress through the night, opted for an epidural at some point, had my water manually broken, labored for a few hours longer, then had the baby. Pretty standard stuff, labor-wise. The scariest parts were at the end, when Genevieve was showing some signs of being unhappy. I'm somewhat afraid that I might have made her stay in longer than I should have, because at one point I wanted to be checked, but my water had already been broken. After your water breaks, they don't like to check you very often because it increases the risks of infection. I had a feeling I'd made progress and was feeling urges to push (and in fact was sort of pushing with each contraction, just a little). But the time before I'd been checked I hadn't made progress when I thought I had; so I decided to ride it out for awhile. When I finally decided it was time to be checked, the nurse gave a look of surprise when she realized I was fully good to go. She let me labor without pushing for just a couple minutes longer (letting my body do some work without too much effort thanks to the powers of the epidural), but soon came in and said it looked like Genevieve wanted to come out already (meaning her heart rate monitor was showing more signs of unhappiness.) So my fear is that I should have persisted in being checked the hour or so before, and that poor Genevieve was struggling inside me. Of course, I could have been checked and found that once again I'd made no progress, but I doubt it. I think I knew magic was happening, but was a little afraid in case I was wrong. That I regret.

When Genevieve was actually born, she was pretty blue and silent. She had to be rubbed down with towels for several minutes before she would pink up and start crying. Her 1-minute Apgar was a 6, and she only got up to an 8 at the 5-minute mark. I had assumed that since she was such a big, active baby that she would come out strong and screaming. I think we were all a little panicked for a few minutes there, at least I was. I just wanted to hold my baby, but every nurse and doctor around was rubbing her down vigorously. Once she finally did cry, it was pretty relieving. The doctor assured us that she was fine, and that some babies just take a little longer to recover from being born. The cord was wrapped once around her body, and apparently it was a short cord; so my guess is that she didn't get the happy amount of oxygen for a few minutes. Knowing that, and knowing that some responsibility for that might lie with me is pretty hard. I also have a bit of a hard time knowing that my one baby had a cord that was too skinny, and my other had a cord that was too short. I feel a little defective when I think about it.

After delivery, I was really weak and light-headed. Some of this is normal. But I didn't feel like I was recovering as I expected to. They took my blood pressure, and it was fine. Looking back, I remember thinking that maybe I was losing blood somewhere that they didn't know. And apparently, that is exactly what was happening. My uterus was filling with blood clots. Finally, about 6 hours after labor, the blood clots were so big that the contractions caused by nursing Genevieve forced some of them out. What happened next I can best describe as an avalanche of blood, or at least that's my perception. They massaged my uterus externally, and blood started pouring from my body. It was honestly a little terrifying. (The details for how they stopped the blood flow are not fun. Let's just say it was stopped.)

Hmm, I don't know that there's much left to write, birth-story wise. So that might be all you get.

In other scary news (if you made it this far), we learned today that Genevieve has a heart murmur. Right now we don't have any reason to believe that we should be scared, but that doesn't stop me (or Jason). We have a follow-up with a pediatric cardiologist on the 4th. (I hate that what feels like an emergency to me is like standard practice for them, and that the wait is so terribly long.) For now, we're holding our breath, hoping to learn that our perfect Genevieve is perfect inside as well as outside.

I knew that this pregnancy had gone too smoothly, that things had been too easy. I'm sad and terrified that I was right. But everything ended up great with Annabella, and I'm trying to believe that it will with Genevieve as well. It's hard to love somebody so much so quickly and then be so terrified in an instant. I guess that's just a part of parenthood. And we've really been blessed. We have 2 beautiful, perfect little girls. Who could ask for more?

Genevieve Claire

2010-09-22T17:43:00.000-04:00

Wanted to update everyone with the name. She still an aggressive feeder and doing really well.

We're back at home now and Amber has even more energy than yesterday. I'll let her post later with details about how Annabella and Genevieve are getting along and maybe a couple more pictures.

Update and Pictures

2010-09-21T10:12:00.000-04:00

So far this baby has been very different personality wise than Annabella. She doesn't really want to sleep at all and has instead been constantly feeding. She is very awake and aware, lifting and moving her head around and searching for nipples.

Yesterday afternoon amber had postpartum hemorrhaging and lost around a liter of blood. They have given her some meds and the bleeding seems to be under control now. Her blood cell count is a bit low, but borderline for needing a transfusion so the docs have so far decided against it. Besides feeling tired and occasionally lightheaded she is doing really well.

As promised, here are some pictures of our beautiful new daughter from yesterday.

She's here!

2010-09-20T14:36:00.002-04:00

Our second baby girl made her grand entrance today at 11:28am. She weighed in at 9 lb 1 oz, and she is 20 inches long.

We're all doing well, but we're all very tired.

I will try to post pictures in a few days.

We still don't have a name :)

Checked in to the hospital

2010-09-19T22:18:00.002-04:00

We're at the hospital for the induction tonight. If you don't want any of the possibly gross details, stop here. :)

I was just checked, and my body has finally made some progress on its own. I'm 50% effaced, my cervix is dilated to 2 or 3 cm, and I'm at station -2. (Effaced has to do with how thinned out or soft everything is. Station deals with position of baby.)

This is awesome news, as it means I do not need the Foley bulb (or any other kind of cervix ripening)! They just started me on pitocin (at 10:20).

So I'm anticipating virtually no sleep tonight, but I'm still going to try while I'm sleepy.

Hopefully my next update will be with news of a healthy baby.

Still no baby

2010-09-18T19:57:00.002-04:00

I'm still hoping to go into labor naturally, but I'm excited that I'll get to meet my new little girl in the next few days either way.

I don't remember what I've told people or what I've posted where, but I'm pretty certain that I actually have not dropped. I think I was just using really wishful thinking when I posted that. The baby's butt felt a little lower to me, but she's moved several times since that day that made me think I was completely wrong, and the doctors never said anything about her being lower.

Also, Friday's appointment made it clear that the doctor on Tuesday had been generous when he said I was dilated 1cm, which makes sense in retrospect. He was alluding to something like that with his comments, but I didn't catch on because I didn't know what 1cm should be like. The doctor Friday said I'm not dilated at all.

So that's all there is. I have to run. Bedtime routine calls for my big girl.

A trying night

2010-09-16T20:43:00.002-04:00

Annabella didn't sleep all that well last night. Then she woke up earlier than normal and took a shorter nap at daycare. Maybe this is why she was a royal pain tonight. I don't know. I think she also got over-hungry at one point, which certainly contributed. But tonight was a "no" night. We finally just now got her to bed, after a lot of continuous screaming.

I'm wondering if she's sensing the change that's about to happen. Besides being in an altogether terrible mood all evening long, she's flip flopped from being in a Daddy phase to suddenly being in a complete Mommy phase. She screams when I put her down, when I can't carry her, when I have to leave her for even a couple minutes. She screams even when Jason is there to play with or hold her. It's tough for both of us, I'm sure.

I've long known that the terrible twos could bring lots of temper tantrums and such, but I didn't realize how heart-breaking those tantrums would be. Often times we just have to let her work through them. Sure we can comfort her, but that doesn't mean that it's suddenly okay for her to run into the street or not brush her teeth or any number of things. So there's only so much we can do to help her through it, really. And that is hard for me. I hate to hear my baby scream and struggle with her emotions. I know it's part of growing up, and she has to learn to control her feelings. But I wish it were easier for her.

I'm really nervous about my stay in the hospital, and a huge amount of this anxiety stems from me never having spent the night away from Annabella before. I don't know how she'll take having me gone for 3 nights in a row, and maybe more. Especially since Jason will also be gone part of those nights. And if I do go into labor at this point, I'm worried about being away from her all day long over the weekend. So while I'd love to go into labor naturally, part of me just wants to be induced Sunday night so that at least Annabella will have a substantial part of her normal routine in place (daycare) through the week while I'm at the hospital.

In other news, if it wasn't completely obvious, I'm still pregnant.

No change

2010-09-15T19:51:00.004-04:00

Jason told me that a few weeks ago he looked at me and thought "wow, she's huge". He said he'd never seen me bigger, that with Annabella's pregnancy I carried differently and this time my stomach just looks bigger. (I actually weighed more when I was pregnant with Annabella. But he's right, my stomach is huge this time.) He said yesterday he was blown away by how much huger I look now compared with just a few weeks back.

I'm big enough now that it's physically uncomfortable to have Annabella leaning back against me. The pressure from the outside combines with the internal pressure and is just too much.

I'm so ready to meet this little girl and get my body back. I don't know how women who carry twins do it.

A discouraging visit with the doctor

2010-09-14T19:50:00.003-04:00

I had my OB appointment today. I am only 1 cm dilated, although my cervix is soft. When the doctor was checking me out, he said that it seemed like my uterus just didn't want to give up the baby yet. (He explained something about the positioning of the cervix and such to explain this.)

My induction is scheduled for this Sunday at 8pm. We'll be starting at night because my cervix will have to be ripened, unless my body makes some progress between now and then. I had to start my induction with Annabella the same way; so at least I know what to expect.

At this point I'm relatively resigned to the idea of induction. A few months ago I would have said that I'd like to wait until the last possible day to induce, but now I'm happy with being induced this Sunday. Besides being the best scenario for Annabella (because she'll be at during the daycare for the duration of my stay at the hospital), I just don't really care to be pregnant anymore. My midsection feels stretched to capacity, and I fear this baby is huge.

Annabella actually went to this appointment with me. She threw up yesterday and acted really sick for all of 2 or 3 hours. Then she was back to her normal chipper self. But the throwing up keeps her out of daycare for 24 hours; so we spent the day together. She was pretty cute during the appointment, very protective of me. She didn't like it at all when the nurse took my blood pressure for instance. I had to keep reassuring her that they weren't hurting me.

I have one more appointment scheduled before Sunday. They will do a non-stress test of the baby, to make sure it's safe to wait till Sunday for the induction. I think they will check my cervix again to verify that the ripening is necessary. This appointment is Friday; so I'll try to update the blog again when it's over.

So the countdown starts again. 120 hours until my induction starts, unless magic happens first.

My Family of Three

2010-09-13T15:11:00.002-04:00

We spent a lot of the weekend doing things Annabella likes to do.

Saturday morning we went to a park we hadn't been to before. They had little cars and a tricycle there, as well as a big sand box are and some slides and such. The weather was great, and Annabella loved it.

After a super long nap (over 2 hours!) we took her out to the lake with the ducks. It's been too hot and I've been too pregnant to attempt this lake for awhile, but we found out about a back entrance that dumps you right by where all the ducks gather. Since Saturday was the first not-oppressively-hot day we've had in awhile, we couldn't resist taking her out to see the ducks again. We were a little afraid they'd be gone for the season, but there were probably 30 or so ducks, and Annabella loved it! She was laughing as she was throwing her bread to the ducks. So much fun.

Jason took Annabella to our local park Sunday morning while I slept; so it was a good morning for all. Then after a super short nap (~45 minutes, she has an average to maintain afterall...) Annabella headed out to meet Dada, Uncle Jacob, and Aunt Lynn at a local bar to watch some of the Browns game. The bar was great. Since NC passed the law to prevent smoking in public restaurants, we haven't had to worry about places like that being smoke pits. The food was good, the restaurant was clean, and we had a great view for the game. Plus, everybody there was super welcoming to Annabella (and it was less than 1 mile from home in case she got fussy.)

After the game was over, we took Annabella to the "Big Pool" (as opposed to the little baby pool we keep out back.) We hadn't been to the big pool in 2 weeks, but I was surprised at the drastic difference. Two weeks ago it was packed, with kids everywhere. Yesterday it was empty. And even though the temperature was mid 80s, the water was a little too cold for the Boo and she was quickly shivering. We asked if she wanted to go home and she said no through her shivers. After trying the kiddie pool and splash areas and being cold through all of them, we called it a day even though Annabella did not want to give up the good fight.

I love my little family of three. I know I'm going to miss it once we're a family of four. I just hope that we're still able to give Annabella the love and attention she craves and deserves, even with the competing needs of the little one.

It was a nice weekend. A good last weekend spent with just our Boo, that is if her sister starts cooperating and makes her grand entrance.

Ahh, deeper breaths

2010-09-10T15:22:00.003-04:00

I seem to have dropped a little bit. For those of you who haven't had babies, this means that it appears and feels like the baby is sitting a little lower in my midsection.

This is a good sign that labor will come, at some point. Unfortunately, there's no rule about when babies drop. Sometimes it's weeks in advance. Sometimes babies stay up high until you are well into labor.

I'm afraid that I might be making this up, because I can't really feel where the baby's head is. But I can feel her butt, and it seems lower. Plus, breathing feels a little easier, which hopefully indicates that my lungs have more room for air.

If she is lower, then I'm hoping she's low enough to have her head by my cervix. The Foley Bulb imitates the baby's head resting on your cervix; so if she's sitting there already, there should be no need for cervix ripening, even if I am induced. So hopefully my cervix will get the message and do its thing.

I'm trying (and failing) to not get overly excited by this new development. But every little thing I feel makes me wonder if it is something labor related, when in reality, it's most likely just her moving around.

FAQ

2010-09-09T09:54:00.001-04:00

I've been getting asked a lot of the same questions lately...

1) Still pregnant? Yep.

2) How are you feeling? (This is usually a thinly masked question meaning do I feel any labor symptoms...) I feel like I'd like to have this baby already. But I also have no reason to believe that she's coming anytime particularly soon. I have been cramping and having some Braxton Hicks contractions for weeks, but if anything, I think those have slowed down the past few days. Hopefully all that cramping has started my cervix dilating, but I haven't been checked yet; so I don't know.

3) When are you due again? Sunday. As in 3 days from now (or approximately 62 hours from now...)

4) So what happens then? Well, if she still refuses to make her grand entrance, I continue to wait. The doctors won't let me go past 42 weeks as the health of the baby tends to decline after 42 weeks. So if I'm still pregnant at 41 weeks, I will most likely be induced that Monday or Tuesday (the 20th or 21st). My next OB appointment is Tuesday, and I will schedule an induction date then. I will also have my cervix checked at this appointment. If I am dilated enough, then my induction will be scheduled for the morning. If not, then I will need to go the the hospital the previous night so that my cervix can be ripened with a Foley Bulb. I'm still really hoping to just go into labor naturally though.

5) How big is that baby? The doctor estimated she weighed 8 or 8.5 pounds this past Tuesday.

6) How's Annabella going to take having a new baby sister? My guess is not well. Jason and I have a babydoll to give her (from the baby) when she meets her sister at the hospital. We're hoping that Annabella will take care of her baby while Mommy takes care of her new sister. We're also planning to get as much help from Annabella as possible so that she feels involved, and we're going to make sure to spend alone time with her each day. We're going to continue to send her to daycare because we want to keep as much of her routine in place as possible to make this easier for her. Plus she's likely to get bored at home since we won't be able to spend as much time taking her to parks or playing with her.

7) Have you guys chosen a name yet? Nope. But we packed our baby names book in the hospital bag.

Still pregnant

2010-09-06T14:08:00.002-04:00

I owe a bunch of people phone calls. I'm sure some of them are thinking I've gone into labor. If only... I really just need to do a better job of returning phone calls.

September is finally here!

2010-09-01T09:33:00.002-04:00

Some of you know that my being pregnant through the heat of summer wasn't unintentional. When Jason and I were discussing when we wanted to try for number 2, we decided that we'd work around the cutoff date for entering kindergarten, figuring that we'd rather our child be the oldest in the class than the youngest. In North Carolina, a child has to turn 5 on or by August 31st to enter kindergarten; so we decided aiming for another September baby would be a good way to go. Plus, we thought it might take a few months of trying this time around, and then our child would be in the middle of the class as far as age is concerned.

Of course it didn't take multiple months. And this baby's due date is September 12. So while I've been complaining that I'm ready for this baby to come, I've also been counting down the hours until September, sweating bullets that this baby would be born in August and I'd be mad that I'd been pregnant all summer long for nothing. (If I'd been smarter, we would have waited 1 more month before trying so that I wouldn't have been worried about that. Oh well.) And I've been superstitious about saying that on the blog, thinking it would basically cement an August birthday. Now that September is here, I can breathe easy.

But after literally counting down the hours till September (at least for the past 10 days or so...), I'm feeling a little bit of let down now that September is here. I've been so stoked to get here, thinking, she can come anytime now. And of course, she will still take her time, coming when she's ready. So while I feel like I'm ready to jet off to the hospital and meet this baby, she seems perfectly content to stay where she is.

So now I'm counting down the hours till my due date. This countdown just doesn't feel as exciting though, and I'm not sure I'll even stick with it.

I was a little bit embarrassed to admit to Jason that I was counting down hours until September 1st. But he wasn't the least bit surprised and just made some comment about my OCD. So I guess I should be a little embarrassed to admit it on the blog, but I've already confessed my OCD. So I guess I'm just providing a little more evidence :)

I feel like I'm going to pop.

2010-08-27T09:14:00.002-04:00

I'm due in 16 days. I don't remember being this physically miserable at the end of my pregnancy with Annabella, but maybe that's because Annabella was so small.

I feel a little guilty for it, since I know a lot of people have trouble getting pregnant and would love to trade places with me, but I really don't like being pregnant. There are some nice things about it, but I'm so ready to just meet this baby already. Or soon, at least.

I finally have my hospital bag mostly packed. The house is basically ready. We still need to clean out the cars and install the infant carseats.

I'm still terrified over how Annabella will handle the change. I hope she will love her sister, at least in time. I hope that she will be happy to have a little playmate. I hope that she will whisper secrets to her sister and hold her hand when she cries and give her tons of kisses. But right now I would settle for Annabella just not hating her sister.

Jason and I are going to go on one last date tonight while we still can, before we are overwhelmed by babyhood again. I'm looking forward to it, but I'm a little afraid that I'm going to end up sleeping through the movie. Putting me in a dark room with comfy seats and expecting me to stay awake might not be smart.

I think all of us are just really tired. Annabella's been cranky, and she's been waking up here and there at night. She'll put herself back to sleep most times, but she's making enough noise to wake the rest of us. And then Jason and I are both having troubles falling back asleep. I think the anxiety level is just up for all of us. I know I'm having a hard time shutting down my thoughts at night, and I don't think I'm alone in that.

That feels like enough rambling for today :)

23 days!

2010-08-20T10:31:00.001-04:00

My due date is rapidly approaching. I can't wait!

Can we just pretend today never happened?

2010-08-17T17:11:00.002-04:00

Traffic was TERRIBLE this morning. Really bad. So bad that it caused me to be 30 minutes late for my OB appointment. (Note, I was 35 minutes late. I'll accept blame for 5 though.)

I pull into the parking lot, just in time for some truck to back into my car. I maybe could have backed out of the way, but I didn't have time to look behind me and didn't want to hit somebody else. So I laid on my horn instead. I don't know if he tried to stop or not, but he backed into my front bumper. I was pretty much directly behind him, and he claimed I was in his blind spot. He must have a pretty big blind spot... No real damage to the car though, and I'm fine, save for a minute or 2 where my neck felt a little tight.

I go in for my appointment, and because I'm so late, I have to wait forever to be seen. Argh.

When I'm finally seen, the doctor decides that I need to have a 20 minute non-stress test at the clinic, and if that turns out ok, then I need to be monitored for 4 additional hours at labor and delivery. Just to be safe. Just in case my placenta is pulling away due to the fender bender.

The 20-minute stress test takes close to an hour. It's fine.

I go to the hospital. Jason and I grab food before heading over to L&D (they said no rush because the non-stress test was fine.) We go up to L&D. They put us in a room where I have a bed and a TV. I get to watch close to an hour of Grey's Anatomy reruns. This is honestly the highlight of my day. Getting to relax and watch TV in the middle of the day almost never happens. I was a little sad when the nurse came back and said that the doctor decided that I didn't need to stay all that long since the accident was pretty low impact, with it being in a parking lot and all they figured the truck wasn't going all that fast. Everything looked good though, and that's the important part.

But they let me out just in time to make it reasonable for me to go to work. I get to work and deal with some problems that have nothing to do with my team, but keep getting the runaround from the team who should be looking into it. After getting multiple people mad at me (and each other), the other team's manager finally takes it over and figures out the problem. I was talking to the person that should have figured it out pretty much from the start, but instead of actually looking at what I was sending him, he just kept sending me back to my team, trying to blame us for stuff that isn't even close to our area. Nice.

I call home. By this time Jason's picked up Annabella and they should be there. When Jas answers, I can hear her screaming in the background. Apparently nothing will make her happy today. She has a bit of a cold, and really wants us to know how very not happy she is.

I still have a few hours before I can go home because I'm signed up for a preggo water aerobics class. I need to go to it as it's the only thing that's really keeping my back loose. An hour there and my back feels better for a couple days.

But all I want to do is go home to hold Annabella, and to forget the rest of the day away...

Close call

2010-08-16T13:35:00.003-04:00

2 posts in one day! Crazy, I know.

So I almost got hit by a truck this weekend. It was a little bit terrifying, and also rage-inducing.

I was walking out of a store in a parking lot. A truck was driving up his lane, and I was in the fire lane. The fire lane at this store is pretty big, giving shoppers lots of room to walk and such. I wasn't paying super close attention to him and kept walking, staying in the fire lane but walking towards his lane. I had no indication anything was wrong until Jason yelled "Amber". I stopped moving and looked back at him to see what the problem was. He said something about the truck and I turned back in time to see his wheel come within a few inches of my foot. He would have hit me if Jason hadn't seen that he was cutting over and yelled for me to stop.

I wish I would have had more nerve at the time to say something to him. He jumped out of his truck and nonchalantly went up to the Redbox, completely oblivious that he'd put me in danger. But I was too shaken at the time, of course blaming myself.

Looking back though, I really don't think this was my fault, even if my head was in the clouds. I mean

I was in a parking lot for crying out loud.
I was there at a peak time for customers, and there were people everywhere.
Pedestrians ALWAYS have the right of way (a lesson I somewhat painfully learned while taking my first driving test...)
I was in fire lane, one that he really had no business driving in in the first place.
I was not moving quickly. In face, I was very slowly waddling along.
I'm pretty easy to see. After all, an 8 months pregnant woman slowly shuffling along is hard to miss.

So after I got home and was still pretty shaken up, I wished that I'd at least yelled at him a little. Told him to watch where he was going or something. Stood up for myself in some way. But I didn't. I don't know that it would have helped, but maybe I wouldn't still be a little freaked out if I had.

The experiment...

2010-08-16T13:20:00.003-04:00

We had 2 sets of friends over this weekend, each with a baby.

On Saturday, the baby (Blake) was 9 months old. He was crawling and standing and playing with toys. Annabella could have been nicer to him and showed some signs of jealousy, but it wasn't really too bad. She would take her toys and walk away with them whenever Blake showed a little interest (even if she hadn't cared about that toy in a really long time), but when coaxed, she even handed him a ball to play with. So really, Saturday went pretty well.

On Sunday, the baby (Lydia) was 4 months old. And Annabella was NOT happy, not happy at all. She started out pretty uncertain, and showed a lot of signs of just not knowing what to do. At one point Jason was holding Lydia, and Annabella was running at him full force and sort of hit Lydia in the process. Annabella didn't hit her hard, and I don't think she meant to hit her, but Annabella fell apart when Lydia started crying and she saw the look Jason gave her. After that, Annabella needed a lot of comfort and was almost afraid of the baby. She wouldn't even come up and sit next to me while I was holding Lydia. And then when I handed Lydia off, Annabella was firmly planted in my lap needing lots of snuggles.

Lessons learned: Annabella freaks out over other babies crying. Annabella is really not okay with Mommy or Daddy holding other babies. Annabella needed more attention than normal after the babies went away.

And the big takeaway lesson is: We're in for a heap of trouble.

I'm really really worried for Annabella now. Before this weekend, I was convinced that she'd have a hard time losing out on attention and go through some jealousy issues, but I didn't imagine she'd have negative feelings for the baby outside of those. Seeing her so insecure was really tough, and I'm not sure how we'll combat that.

Annabella is the most important person in the world to me, and I'm feeling really pretty darn guilty for putting her through this right now. I hope it doesn't turn out to be a bad decision for her.

Updates

2010-08-06T16:13:00.002-04:00

I know it's been forever since I posted. Sorry!

I now have 37 days until my due date. It's starting to feel really close now, which is super exciting. I had a doctor's appointment earlier this week, and he said that if I went into labor now, they wouldn't stop it. Apparently 34 weeks is a magic number for them. He said that there's nothing they couldn't provide outside the body that my body is now providing; so if my body does go into labor, they take the approach that my body knows something they don't and let my body do its thing.

Annabella is doing great. Being her Mommy is really a whole lot of fun. This morning she refused to let me help her put her shorts on. She managed to get her legs into the holes and pull them part way up. I had to help her get them over her butt, at least partly because they were on backwards. She was angry that I helped her even that much!

She's also refusing to sit in her booster seat at most meals these days, instead opting to sit/kneel on the chairs. For the most part she does a good job with this. She's really too short to be good with it for foods like cereal, where she needs to dip her spoon into the bowl and such, but that doesn't stop her from trying. The whole ordeal can be pretty aggravating though because she's also free to move at will. So a birdie on the wall would be apt to hear things like "Annabella, sit on your chair!" or "We don't climb on tables!" or "No, you cannot climb on top of Mommy and eat dinner there!" When she refuses to sit on her chair, I'll tell her that she's telling me she's all done by not sitting on her chair and I'll move her to the floor. A lot of times this works and she'll climb back up onto her chair and sit to eat. But she's learned to be a bit sneaky about it and will sometimes climb up just high enough to grab something and shove it in her mouth.

Jason and I try really hard to sit at the table while we're eating (as long as she's in sight) so that she won't have a reason to believe that it's ok to wander while you eat, but I think we probably need to step up our efforts here even more. We can't really expect her to follow rules she sees us breaking, at least not when it comes to things like this. I know a lot of people just let their kids wander and eat at will, but I don't know how they do it. Annabella is usually covered in food when she eats, and the idea of having peanut butter smeared all throughout the house (and the ensuing bugs that would come) is enough to convince me that this is a rule we need to keep, at least until she's old enough to not make such a mess. Plus, it's really nice to eat together at the table as a family.

I think Annabella is still be behind in her spoken language. She says a lot of words, but they're not very clear. And I don't know that she's using any real phrases yet. I try not to let this bother me, but it does. From what I understand, this is an area that tends to have more variation between kids, but sometimes when I go into daycare I get a little blown away by what her friends are saying. I think some of this is personality (she tends to be quiet in general), and I think some of it is that she's more interested in tuning her fine and gross motor movements, but part of my worries that there might be a legitimate delay there. I guess it's just my job as a Mom to always be worried. If it weren't this, I'm sure it would be something else (not that I don't worry about a whole list of other things too!) Her daycare teachers assure me she's fine, and that they'd only be worried about it if her receptive language wasn't as good as it is. And her pediatrician also said she was fine at her 1.5 year appointment. I guess I'll just make sure to grill him about it again at her 2 year checkup.

I know there's a lot more that I've been wanting to say, but this is getting long enough as it is. Plus, my memory is shot these days. Baby brain for the win!

So it turns out I wasn't just sleepy

2010-07-22T16:45:00.002-04:00

I understand why I couldn't keep my eyes open on Monday now. Annabella gave me her stomach bug. Yucko. After lots of sleep, and some grossness you don't want to hear about, I'm feeling much better. It's a good thing she's so cute :)

I'm sleepy

2010-07-19T14:39:00.002-04:00

After a nice weekend, you'd think I'd be refreshed. But my girls just couldn't have that. The little one decided to have a dance party in my tummy that kept me awake starting around 3:30, and then the big one decided that she needed Mommy at about 4:50. Yawn.

60 days and counting

2010-07-14T12:05:00.004-04:00

My due date is 60 days away. The closer it gets, the further it seems to stretch in front of me. I know the time will pass by and Awesome Pants will be here and it will have felt like the time flew by. But right now, I just want to meet her, to smell the top of her little head, to introduce her to Annabella, to feel my world shift again. She needs to bake awhile longer though; so I guess I'll just have to try to be patient.

In other news, I got an email yesterday about Annabella's transition at daycare. They want to move her up to the two's room starting on her birthday. I'm really nervous about this. She'll be the only toddler from her current room to move up to that room, at least for a couple weeks. The 2 toddlers who are slightly older than her are going to a different room. She might recognize some friends from the other toddler room, but they are quite a bit older than she is. The daycare person tried to alleviate my concerns, but I think she was feeding me a few lines of BS, honestly. "Oh, Annabella plays with Rylee all the time on the playground. And she likes to play with Tatum too." Funny that those are names I never hear when her teachers tell me who she's playing with. And it seems like the original biter (if I narrowed it down correctly) will be following her into her new room. With 3 or 4 biters in her current room and some next door as well, I can't honestly expect Annabella to be isolated from all of them when she moves up to her next room, but a Momma can hope, right? Even with all that, normally I would understand. She is turning 2 after all, and she will need to move up. The resources in the next room will better match her development, and she'll probably have more room to run. But the thing that still really troubles me about this transition is that it will be so darn close to an even bigger transition for her. I'm supposed to pop around 16 days before her birthday. I was thinking our one saving grace would be that her daycare routine would stay stable and help Annabella deal with having a new baby sister. Annabella transitioned from the infant to toddler room sometime in November last year; so I just wasn't expecting for them to want to move her in September. Argh! I've voiced some of these concerns to the admin staff; so we'll see if they give us another option. (I'm further frustrated because we had the option of accepting or declining last year's transition, depending on whether we thought Annabella was ready. This year we've been offered no such option. Grr. And don't even get me started on some of my other daycare admin gripes!)

Whew! I guess I can rant on and on when my Mother Bear comes out.

I don't think there's much more to update about, really. Annabella is continuing to assert her independence. She's choosing to sit at her big girl table rather than on her booster seat, which is a little sad for me because I miss having her at our height at the dinner table. She's screaming her head off before sleep, whether it be naptime or bedtime. She's pointing to let us know where she wants to go at any given time. She's talking more and more, and she gets so excited when she sees a duck or water. She's my little angel, and I couldn't love her more.

I'm updating over my lunch break at work; so I don't have any pictures from home to share. So I'm going to cheat again and give you some more from daycare (again with comments from her teacher):

This morning when we went outside, we saw a praying mantis! Annabella tried so hard to pet him, but he kept crawling away. When he would start to climb up higher, Annabella said "bye!" and waved.

After playing with the bug, Annabella wanted to play in the bushes with her friend Hannah (not pictured, because I feel weird having other kids' pictures up on the blog). They sat together and Annabella and Hannah "talked" to each other like they were having the best conversation! What a great way to learn social skills with others!

I think that last picture is kind of funny, because it shows Annabella's personality. She's obviously hot. You only have to look at her red little cheeks to see that. But I'd bet dollars to donuts that you'd have to drag her inside. After all, she's at her favorite place to be, "ahtsi" (aka, outside).

Vacation

2010-07-07T15:09:00.005-04:00

We just got back from visiting friends in a cute little town in upstate New York. We had so much fun, and it was hard to come back to face the daily grind. I think Annabella had the best time out of all of us though, as JJ and Seda spoiled her rotten. Her days were filled with special sweet surprises, trips to the park, and dips in the kiddie pool.

Some of my favorite memories from the trip:

Annabella shared a room with us, and I got to roll over and watch my baby sleeping over and over again. There was just something so sweet about seeing her perfect little body curled up with her butt in the air for sleep. And I never knew she sleeps with her ankles crossed. So cute!
Watching my baby discover smores. We couldn't get Annabella to eat a marshmallow to save our lives, but melt it and smash it between chocolate and graham cracker and it was an instant hit. She might not have known what it was, but she liked it.
Visiting with some dearly-missed friends. Good friends are hard to come by. And Seda and JJ aren't just good friends, they're cream-of-the-crop friends.
Swapping pregnancy stories. Seda is 8 weeks behind me in her pregnancy, and it was fun to have another expectant mommy around.
All the good food. Seda is an AMAZING cook. Everything she makes is just so good. And JJ's not too shabby either :) I think Annabella heartily agreed as she ate more food over this vacation than any other 3 day period in her life. It was crazy to see how much food she downed and how distended her little belly was.
Seeing Annabella wake up in the morning to discover that she was still in the place of awesome fun.
Watching my friends spoil my child. The were pretty obviously enamored with her. I remember reading somewhere that showing my child love is showing me love, and it's true. I was so touched they spent so much time playing with her and suffering through the heat of the sun so she could be outside (her favorite place in the world).
The local fair... There's no way I could explain it in such a way to do it justice, but I've never seen so many back-woodsy people congregated in one place before in my life. Plus it featured my first demolition derby, Annabella's first sno-cone, and a child who appeared to have bleeding chicken pox who stood in line just behind us. I didn't understand why Seda was asking which childhood diseases we were supposed to avoid during pregnancy until I caught a good look at this girl, and then I decided it was time for both of us to leave. But it was still fun.

And because I've bored you with vacation stories, I'll include the pictures Annabella's daycare teacher emailed us today (along with the teacher's comments):

First Annabella quickly found the teeter totter and bounced on it with her friend.

Then, Annabella found a quiet spot away from her friends to dig in the sand. She used a shovel to scoop sand into a small container. What a fun way to show off her hand-eye coordination.

When she was done with her digging, Annabella went to play on the slide. She stood at the top of the slide and said "hi!" to all her friends before she slid down. What fun!

Ultrasound

2010-06-30T12:12:00.002-04:00

I had my ultrasound for Awesome Pants today. Everything looks great! And she's not huge! She's in the 51st percentile for weight, which is pretty much perfect. Her estimated weight right now is 3lb 6oz. So she just feels huge to me because she's so much bigger than her sister was, but she's actually normal. Once again, I can't believe how normal this pregnancy has been. Jason and I both keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, and we're just so happy that so far, everything has been great!

Here are some pictures:

I believe her eyes are actually open here (according to our sonographer).

Look at those little toes!

Obligatory profile shot.

The funny stuff in front of her face in this last one is actually the umbilical cord.

New pictures up

2010-06-25T07:07:00.002-04:00

I posted some pictured from June here: http://annabellag.shutterfly.com/

I'm having issues getting blogger to upload pictures; so for now, this is all you get:

I'm pretty sure she's so happy because we keep stopping her from shoving crepe myrtle buds into her mouth, which is great fun.

OCD

2010-06-24T13:34:00.003-04:00

At times, I can be a little obsessed with numbers. I prefer even numbers, meaning I'd rather eat 2 cherries than 3, and sometimes I touch something an extra time just to make sure I've touched it an even number of times. Powers of 2 are especially pleasing, especially if the power is also even. So while 8 is a good number, it's not nearly as good as 16. It gets a little weirder when I'm tapping out rhythms. I prefer 3 identical short strokes, 2 identical longer strokes, and 1 even longer stroke, if that makes sense. So I guess what I'm saying is that I'm a little OCD about some things, but just a little.

Another way my OCD comes out is when it comes to dates. I seem to run through a little routine in my head every morning where I run through the months until I figure out what month it is. Then I figure out the day. Sometimes I actually add up how many days into the year we are, and figure out what percentage of the year that is. (Hey, I've gotta have something mind-numbing to think about in the shower. I'm guessing this is how I accidentally wash my hair twice at times though.)

All of this is why I'm strangely excited that as of today, I have 80 days left until my due date and this is the 200th day of my pregnancy. (Every time I think about this my heart jumps to think I get to meet my baby in 80 days. Then I have to stop and remember that Awesome Pants might come early or late and that a due date is really not a reliable indicator for when this baby will arrive, which totally messes with my OCD.)

It's not that far away, but my next milestone to be irrationally excited about is in 10 days, at which point I will have completed 75% of this pregnancy (yes again, till my due date, meaning my milestones are oh so arbitrary).

I'm guessing all of this makes me a little weird, but I like to pretend that everybody plays these little mind games with themselves.

Regardless, today is a good day. 200 days down is exciting, no matter how you look at it.

Oh, and I really do want to post more pictures. We have some on our camera that I think are pretty cute, but I keep posting over random breaks at work, and I just don't have the pictures here. So I will try to post more from home.

More rambling from me

2010-06-22T11:51:00.002-04:00

Jason was watching Annabella before I got home from work yesterday. After snack time, Annabella grabbed her fork and took it to the dishwasher and tried to open the door. The door was latched though, because the dishes inside were still clean. So Jason explained this to her and went out of the room to do more cleaning. He heard her drop the fork from the other room, but wasn't sure where she dropped it. He looked, but didn't see it. Then, when she wanted to eat again, he went to go get a new fork from the drawer, there her dirty fork was! I know it's such a small thing, but I'm just amazed that she knows where the fork drawer is. She's not tall enough to see in, and it just blows my mind that she thought to put her dirty fork in that specific drawer when the dishwasher wasn't an option. She surprises me constantly by how smart she is.

In other news, I think potty training time is upon us. Annabella goes potty virtually every time we let her sit on her big girl potty. And yesterday she decided to unstrap her diaper and step out of it. So I think potty training time might be upon us, whether we like it or not. (Anybody have any potty training advice? I'm all ears.)

Awesome Pants seems to be growing nicely. My next ultrasound is 1 week from tomorrow, and I'm really excited to see her and hear how big she's gotten. As of Sunday I have officially entered the third trimester of this pregnancy, at least based on all the internet sites I used to look this up. I don't know why there's so much variation in when different people declare the trimester change, but none of the sites I found start the third trimester later than 28 weeks. So yay!

I'm really getting excited to meet Awesome Pants. She's moving and kicking around inside of me all the time, and I'm falling in love with her already. I hope she and Annabella will be the best of friends.

I know there's more I wanted to post, but baby brain has once again triumphed and I can't remember anything else I wanted to say.

Cancer Free!

2010-06-21T12:41:00.003-04:00

Grandpa's PET scan results came back today, and the scan shows no cancer!!! Woohoo!

He'll still have to finish the next 2 rounds of chemo, and they'll still monitor him pretty carefully, but if everything continues to look good, then these next 2 rounds of chemo will be his last!

He got his results over the phone today, and he meets with his doctor tomorrow...so there might be more details then.

Woohoo!

Peanut Butter

2010-06-17T09:20:00.003-04:00

Growing up, my Grandma always made me open-faced peanut butter and banana on toast. I think this is one of my favorite memories from childhood. So of course, PB and banana is one of my favorite things to feed Annabella in the mornings. I'd be surprised if a time has gone by that I haven't thought of my Grandma while feeding her this, and it always makes me smile. Plus, PB and banana is still one of my favorite treats.

The only problem with this whole situation is that Annabella rubs peanut butter all over herself while she eats. Her face, hair, belly, arms, and legs are usually coated in the brown goo before she's finished. And no matter how well I try to clean her, I'm always worried that her friend Ava, who is severely allergic to nuts, will somehow pick up some peanut residue off of her little body. Which would of course be absolutely terrible.

This morning, our routine was a little out of whack. Annabella was a grumpy bear because she woke up a little earlier than normal, and it always takes her a little bit to wake up and be her cheerful self. She takes after her momma this way. I didn't have time to get her milk ready first because she was clinging to me, and instead I made her PB and banana first. When she saw the food, she finally let me strap her little body into her booster seat. Then I went to get her milk. By the time I got back, she was absolutely covered in peanut butter. I think she must have rubbed the bread all over her face. Seriously, getting this messy takes talent. And it was all up in her hair and everything.

I took one look at her and realized that normal cleaning techniques would not suffice. So this morning, Annabella took her first morning shower with Mommy. She's taken a couple with Daddy before, but he's braver than I am. And he was always just in there to clean her off, not to actually get clean himself. So I was a little nervous about the logistics and such. To my surprise, she LOVED her shower. We have one of those shower heads that are on a tube and can hang down, and she loved playing with it. She didn't love putting her face in the water, but she didn't mind it as much as what I normally have to do to get her face clean. And she let me have the shower head back when I needed it. So it worked out really well, until it was time to get out, at which point she screamed and lunged towards the shower and repeated "mine" longingly over and over. I promised her she could shower with Mama again tomorrow, but I'm thinking that it will probably just become part of our routine for the next little bit. I don't see a way around it. Showering while she screams is just not good for my nerves. And even though I love the few minutes of solitude a shower usually gives me, having her entertained and safe during these moments is more important. Plus, I'm next to positive we're not going to accidentally kill Ava today, which counts for a lot.

Some pictures

2010-06-14T21:15:00.005-04:00

I'm taking a photography class, and I need to practice. So I'm going to try really extra hard to post pictures. Hopefully you'll see improvements in them over time.

Here are a few from this past weekend:

Mommy, can I pleeeeeze watch some Baby Einstein?

My pool is awesome!

Why hello, belly! I can't help but notice how you've grown.

What Mommy? You mean I can't take these home?

Punishment

2010-06-09T15:06:00.002-04:00

When Annabella misbehaves, she goes to baby jail for 45 seconds. We swing a baby gate around so that she's essentially trapped in a little hallway area and let her scream her head off about it. (I say essentially trapped because she could crawl under the gate if she really wanted to.) She mainly gets punished for climbing onto tables, standing on chairs repeatedly, or biting/hitting.

While I hate hate hate baby jail, it's been really very effective for us. And it's hard to feel too bad about it since she gets locked up for all of 45 seconds. (Soon enough, we want to move towards a non-gated timeout, but we just couldn't make that work the last time we tried.) Plus, we almost never have to punish her (not including the first weekend we put her in baby jail, as it took her a little bit to learn, and she was being STUBBORN). So all in all, it's been a good thing for us.

I feel like this punishment is in line with what the pediatrician has told us, which was basically that we should ignore behavior we don't like as long as it's not dangerous or aggressive (like biting). For behavior we see as being dangerous or overly aggressive, he said to pick her up, put her in a corner, say no sternly, and walk away, ignoring her. He gave us this advice awhile back though, and she seemed to have outgrown it. Which is why we had to implement baby jail at all. (During her weekend of constant climbing, we couldn't ignore her long enough to be effective as she'd be making a beeline right back up on the table. It was ridiculous.)

So that's the background. Now here's my question: at what age do we start punishing behavior that's not dangerous, but still undesirable?

For instance, I can tell Annabella to come to me a billion times when I want to put sunscreen on her, but she runs and runs. I know that she knows what I'm asking for, she just doesn't want to do it. So every morning, after asking her repeatedly to come to me, I end up chasing her around and pinning her into corners to lather her up.

Is she old enough that she should be punished for this? I just don't know. Baby jail seems extreme for this, but at the same point, running from me when I'm calling her to come to me could be potentially dangerous in other situations. I could try the route where I just ignore her until she comes to me, but I just don't have the time for that in the morning. And I'm honestly not even sure she'd remember what it was that I wanted by the time she figured out I was ignoring her.

So those of you with older kids, what did you do?

26 weeks

2010-06-07T16:28:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I finally made it to 26 weeks! Which for me, means I can breathe a little easier. 26 weeks is an arbitrary milestone, I know, but last pregnancy I read a book that said the survival rate for a baby born at 26 weeks was something like 60%, which feels like a fighting chance to me. I think the medicine must have improved, because today I found this chart (on about.com, but about.com credits March of Dimes with the chart.)

Length of Pregnancy	Likelihood of Survival
23 weeks	17%
24 weeks	39%
25 weeks	50%
26 weeks	80%
27 weeks	90%
28-31 weeks	90-95%
32-33 weeks	95%
34+ weeks	Almost as likely as a full-term baby
_{Sources: March of Dimes, Quint Boenker Preemie Survival Foundation}

So if something were to happen and I had to deliver today, BG2 would have an 80% likelihood of survival. So whew. I feel like I've made it. Every day from here just makes her stronger. So while I really would like for her to wait 13 weeks or so before she makes her appearance, I'm pretty relieved that she now has a chance outside of my body, should the worst happen.

I know I said that I would call her BG2 on the blog, and I have been. But Jason and I have been calling her Awesome Pants, which is currently our frontrunner of a name for her. Which tells you we need to sit down and seriously talk names. For realz.

I also remember awhile back lamenting how I just wasn't able to focus on this pregnancy as much as I could with Annabella's, and how it didn't feel fair. Awesome Pants has made me sit up and pay attention. She kicks and rolls and lets me know she's there. Her little jabs feel so much stronger than Annabella's were, at least for how far into this pregnancy I am. And I think she's just outright more active than Annabella was. I remember needing to concentrate to count the kicks with Annabella to make sure she was moving enough. I never feel that way with Awesome Pants. She's like a little boxer when she gets going. Boom boom boom. Kick kick kick. Roll roll roll. Repeat.

I'm sure some of the difference here between the 2 sisters has a lot to do with size. Annabella was and is tiny. She could have been kicking me as hard as her little legs permitted and it just wouldn't feel as hard as a normally sized baby could kick. And I think Awesome Pants is actually on the large size. My uterus measured a week or so ahead of schedule at my last appointment. I have another ultrasound at the end of the month which should estimate her size, but she just feels big to me. Granted, a baby who was in the 25th percentile would probably feel huge to me; so we'll see.

On a completely unrelated note, Annabella has now gone pee pee in the potty 4 times in the last 2 days. One of the times she even pointed to the bathroom to indicate she wanted to go sit on the potty. I don't think we're quite ready for potty training yet, but I am so completely proud of my little girl.

Because I realized it's been since March since I posted a new picture

2010-06-03T13:25:00.003-04:00

Full Disclosure: Neither Jas or I took this picture, but it's the only new one I have handy. And Annabella looks adorable in it, if I do say so myself.

This baby might be huge

2010-06-03T13:16:00.002-04:00

At my appointment yesterday, my uterus is measuring a week or so ahead of schedule in size. And this baby kicks with an impact I don't remember until much later in my pregnancy with Annabella.

While I'll be thrilled if this pregnancy is normal and this baby is not growth-restricted, I have to admit there was one definite benefit to having a small baby. A benefit I maybe took for granted because I was worried about everything else.

How will I ever push this baby out if she's huge?

MINE MINE MINE!!!

2010-06-01T11:16:00.002-04:00

Annabella picked up a new word at daycare last Monday, and it quickly became her favorite. Anything she wants to see/do/touch, she yells "MINE MINE MINE!!!". Jason and I are translating this into, "May I have that, please?" It definitely makes "MINE MINE MINE!!!" easier to hear. Heaven forbid we have to say no, because then her body immediately wilts into a giant screaming mess. The terrible twos will be fun, I can tell already. But at least Jason and I recognize her triggers. If she's hungry or sleepy, her mood deteriorates quickly. And there are some toys/objects that she freaks out over way more than others. So maybe we'll survive her second year?

Besides the little temper tantrums and the occasional screams of "MINE!!!", this weekend was pretty darn awesome. We bought a blow-up kiddie pool and played in it a couple times, which was way fun. Annabella was cautious at first, but now she seems to dig it. She'll even go over to where her pool toys are drying and pick them up and say "wa wa" (aka water). It's pretty cute. And I'm totally digging the kiddie pool as I think it'll be a fun way to spend time with her this summer while staying cool and not over-doing it, which is easy to do with this pregnant body.

Besides the pool, we drew pictures and went to cook outs and looked at chickens and just had a really nice time as a family. Oh, and Annabella has really started repeating words. She pointed to something and asked Jason what it was, and he said, "it's blah blah blah, actually". And she turned to him and said "ackshee". I got her to say it again this morning. So cute. Oh, and I finally got her to repeat Momma, and she even said it when I pointed to myself and asked who I was. This isn't the first time she's said Momma or anything, but she certainly saves it for the rare occasion (as opposed to Dada, which she babbles after Jason constantly.) So it was nice to hear her say Momma a few times this weekend.

Oh, and Jason is officially the favorite parent. My tenure in this role has come to an end. This has become increasingly clear the past week or two, but this weekend put the final nail in the coffin. I was playing with her, and we were having fun in the play room. She went to the door and signaled "all done". When I let her out, she ran to go up the stairs. When I asked her what she wanted upstairs, she said "Dada". Ouch. I have to admit I was tempted to let her run up and wake him up, even if it was his sleep in day. :)

My solemn vowel

2010-05-26T10:03:00.003-04:00

Three years ago today, at this time, I remember being giddy with excitement. I was a little nervous about everything that had to be done, but I realized it was too late for all that, and I was finally able to relax and just be happy. I think my best girls and I were probably just arriving at the church to get our hair and makeup done. My dress was already there waiting for me. My big day had arrived, at last.

I remember laughing about how the makeup artist went completely overboard. (I told her we wanted the natural look, really!) I remember sitting there and eating Subway and thinking how sweet it was that a friend had gone out to get it for us and had even thought to bring back straws so we wouldn't ruin our makeup. I remember the photographer showing up, and my bridesmaids whispering to me how attractive he was. I remember him blushing when I told him they thought he was cute. But mainly I remember just soaking in the minutes, anxiously awaiting the hour my life would change.

I remember walking down the aisle and seeing Jason cry. I remember trying to really understand the words I was saying as I spoke them, but feeling it was all too fast. In sickness and in health? Yes. For better of worse? Yes. Till death do us part? Yes.

I remember the minister leading us up to the alter. I remember slipping the ring on Jason's finger, and repeating what the ring meant. I remember telling Jason that this was my solemn vowel. Oops! I remember flashing Jason a look of panic. I'd messed up!

And I remember the minister declaring us to be married, a few minutes later, my solemn vowel and all.

I loved that day.

It still ranks pretty high on my list of days. But not as high as I thought it would. As I stop and look around, and think about where we are now, and see my little girl running and squealing in excitement, and imagine our next little girl who's still on her way, I have to admit that today is pretty awesome too.

Three years ago today, we started a journey together. And it just keeps getting sweeter.

I love you Jason!

Big Girl

2010-05-17T11:32:00.002-04:00

Whenever I put Annabella to bed, I lay her in her crib on her side. (Okay, I admit it. It's more of a harsh plop rather than a gentle laying down, but she's heavy, and the crib sides are so high...and yeah, I'm mother of the year. I know.) Usually, as soon as her little body hits the mattress, she rolls to her tummy and tucks her legs under her, sticking her little butt up in the air. It is absolutely adorable. And my heart swells.

I'm saddened to report that the last couple of times I've put Annabella down, she's rolled over onto her belly and sprawled her arms and legs out, adopting a big girl pose.

Where has my baby gone?

I'm finding with this parenting thing that it's the little things that knock the breath out of me, make me want to cry. And this is one of those. A tiny passage in time is ending, and I miss it already. I'm so proud of Annabella and the big girl she is becoming, but oh how I miss my baby.

And to add insult to injury, I've noticed in the last week or two that she hasn't been as snuggly with me. It used to be that when I would take her down for breakfast in the morning she wouldn't let me put her down until I was ready to put her in her high chair. She would shriek if I even tried it. And oh, it was annoying. I kept trying to explain that I just needed to put her down so I could plop her toast in or get her milk out of the fridge, but she would have nothing to do with that. And now? My little girl takes off running and squealing as she runs circles in the house, full of energy and life.

Don't even get me started on the lukewarm greetings I've been getting when I pick her up from daycare. Three weeks ago she would have run to me as fast as her two little legs could carry her and not let go of me until we were leaving together. Last week when I picked her up, my darling little angel looked at me, then looked at the snack she was eating, and couldn't decide which she wanted more. When she finally got up, she ran around the room with her paper towel, pretending to look for the trash, but really stalling for time.

So while my heart swells with pride and love for my big girl, it's also a little shattered because I just can't stop missing the little girl who's growing up too fast.

Ramblings

2010-05-07T09:26:00.004-04:00

I'm officially 5 months pregnant! Yay! Now if only I looked like I was 5 month pregnant rather than 7 months... My body is changing so much faster this pregnancy than last. Everything is going well. I'm at the point now where I'm holding my breath for that 26 week mark where the baby would potentially be viable outside my womb. Not that I want to meet her anywhere near that early, but it will be nice to know that if the worst happens, my baby will still have a shot. Only 4 more weeks to go till we get there!

Annabella is doing great. Apparently they sit her on the potty during diaper changes, and she went pee pee in the potty the other day! So exciting. We're not even trying to potty train her yet, but it's nice to think that it might not be too far off. And we'll probably start training her once we get a potty for her, but in a really relaxed way. Maybe just let her sit on the potty when she wants to and such for awhile. She doesn't really communicate with us enough yet to hope for much more than that.

Her daycare teacher puts her hair up in pigtails every now and then, which is soooo cute. I think I'm about ready to try again, but the last time I tried to do anything with her hair Annabella just would not sit still. So I asked her teacher how she gets Annabella to let her do it, and the teacher was like, "she just sits there for me". Of course she does. Because she is Little Miss Well-Behaved at daycare. When I told her teacher that that doesn't work for us, she said, "well, I usually do her hair right after nap time when she's calm because she's normally the first child up". To which I asked, "Isn't she usually one of the last ones you put down?" "Well, yes". So yep, my child is the one who takes the shortest naps. I wish I were surprised.

Jason felt the baby kick the other day for the first (and so far only) time. I feel a little bad that this baby isn't getting the same focus and devotion that Annabella got. I remember laying still for like 10 minutes with him just staring at my belly waiting for Annabella to kick. And when he finally saw the little bump that was her foot hitting my stomach, he teared up. This time it was an "Oh, that's cool! Let's go to sleep now." I have to believe that when this baby comes we will fall for her as hard as we fell for Annabella when we met her, but it's just hard to fathom. When I think of my baby girl, my mind usually wanders to Annabella. I think it might have been easier to differentiate in my head if this baby were a boy, but I have all sorts of irrational fears about how I'm going to feel now that I know she's a girl. And I really don't want to short-change this baby. And of course I'm also terrified of short-changing Annabella. Right now she's my sunshine, my reason to smile in the mornings, my beloved baby girl. I keep asking her how my favorite girl is. And then I wonder how she's going to feel when she has to share that title.

In some ways I just can't wait to meet this baby. And in others, I want life to stay just the way it is for a little while longer.

It's a girl!

2010-04-15T12:37:00.003-04:00

We had our second ultrasound today. Here are a few of the pictures.

At this point in my pregnancy with Annabella, she was measuring at least 10 days behind. This baby girl is measuring 4 days behind, which is considered to be within normal range. I'm honestly still a little concerned; so I'm hoping for another ultrasound at 28 weeks. One of the doctors I saw said that this is what he would recommend, given my history; so I'm hoping the next couple of doctors I see agree with him. I just don't want to take any chances.

For right now though, everything looks to be going perfectly with this baby girl.

Thank God for Kielbasa

2010-04-13T20:51:00.002-04:00

I don't think I've kept it a secret that Annabella is small. We've pretty much constantly worried about her size. She looks and acts like she's healthy, but it's hard not to compare her size to other kids her age. And sometimes (ok, often) those other kids tower over her.

Well, before Easter, Jason was really hopeful that Annabella had finally hit the 20 pound mark. This is an especially important milestone because it means that we could turn her around to a forward-facing car seat. And there's just not a whole lot of room in either of our cars...so a forward-facing car seat would mean that my knees wouldn't have to be up against the dash whenever I sit in the front seat.

So one day he steps on a scale, then picks her up and steps back on and declares that the scale said 20.5 pounds. And we're hopeful. So I make her an appointment to get weighed at my work's health care office. She weighed 19lb 8oz. This was on the Wednesday before Easter, for those of you keeping track.

Then came Easter weekend. And she was spoiled rotten. She ate donuts and chocolate, and pretty much anything else the grandparents gave her. And on Easter day, Annabella discovered Kielbasa. And the Polish in her came out as she kept asking for more. When she was done eating she'd take a break and then signal she wanted more food and more Kielbasa. We would normally try to give her more variety and not let her eat so much of 1 food in a day, but we estimate that Annabella must have eaten close to a pound of Kielbasa that day! We couldn't believe it.

This past Thursday we had Annabella's 18-month checkup. At her 15-month checkup, she weight 18lb 14oz. So she'd only gained 10oz from her 15-month appointment all the way up to the Wednesday before Easter. Well, on Thursday, she weighed 20lb 5oz! 13 ounces in a week! You go girl! (Full disclosure: they weighed her with a diaper on for the first time, which probably helped her weight by 2 or 3 ounces. And it was a different type of scale between the 2 weigh-ins. But still!)

So her newest stats are: 20lb 5oz (4th percentile), 30inches (9th percentile), and 48th percentile for head circumference. So she's still my little, adorable bobble-head. But we're thrilled :)

Daycare woes

2010-04-12T21:17:00.004-04:00

Jason and I don't keep Annabella from falling. Of course we don't like it when she falls, but we figure that running around and falling down is part of learning. And if she can crawl up onto something, we figure she can learn how to get down. If she cries out for help, we'll help her...but we really don't want it to turn into a game where she climbs up a billion times just to have us help her down every time. And sometimes she falls pretty hard. Over Easter she fell into some cinder on the street going pretty darn fast.

So given all this, I really don't understand why she gets very few scratches and bruises at home but seems to come home with new boo boos daily after daycare. Right now, she's got a big bruise on her cheek, a bite mark on her shoulder, a bite mark on her wrist, scratches all over her knees, a scratch on her face, and a small bruise on her arm. Of all those, the small bruise on her arm is the only one she got at home (and it wasn't even from falling...Jas accidentally caught some of her skin when he was putting her high chair tray on).

I understand stuff happens. As much as it pains me, I understand that she's going to fall and get hurt. But lately it just seems like it's happening a whole lot, and not on our watch.

What I find especially troubling though is the bite marks. We got incident reports about 3 bite marks, one of which we never saw, one of which was pretty light, and one of which left a pretty nasty mark. None of these broke the skin. We did NOT get an incident report about the fourth bite we found on her shoulder, the one that clearly broke the skin. When we asked her teachers about it, they were puzzled, saying they didn't even remember Annabella crying like she'd been bitten. But the mark was clearly a bite (our pediatrician agreed).

And all of this has been in about the last 2 weeks. I about lost my mind because 3 of the bites happened over 2 days (by at least 2 different kids, although they won't tell us which kids.)

I have to believe that this is just an anomaly and that I need to be patient. We haven't really had these issues before, and some of this is probably due to the changing season and the short sleeves and shorts she's now wearing. And I need to keep a cool head. Annabella loves her classroom, her friends, and her teachers. I don't want to take that away from her.

But right now I mostly want to go scream at somebody.

The totem pole

2010-04-12T21:10:00.004-04:00

Based on the number of kisses Annabella's willing to dole out, here's where I lie on the totem pole:

1) Ceiling fans

2) Dogs and cats

3) Stuffed animals

4) Most other animals

5) Most of her toys

Somewhere far below: Mommy

Spinning around and slowing down at the turn of a switch = win.

Growing her in my body for 9 months = sorta win, just not as much of a win as being a ceiling fan.

Proud Momma Moment

2010-03-29T09:49:00.002-04:00

This morning, at daycare:

Me: Annabella, stay right there while Mommy puts your carseat up.

Annabella stands in place, waiting.

Me: Annabella, come on. Let's go to your classroom. (Puts out finger.)

Annabella grabs my finger and walks down the hall and into her room with me.

Me: Annabella, wait! Mommy needs to take your coat off and wash your hands before you go play.

Annabella starts to take her coat off and waits for me to help.

Me: Annabella, go to the sink.

Annabella walks over to the stink and steps up on the step, waiting for me to wash her hands.

I can't believe how much my little munchkin understands and how well she follows instructions. (And also how much she blatantly ignores me other times!)

1.5 years

2010-03-28T20:30:00.006-04:00

Annabella turned 1.5 today. I can't believe it's been so long since the magical day she came into my life. She has gotten so big, and I'm just so proud of her. Every day she does something that makes my heart swell. She follows simple directions. She asks for cheese (chizz). She squeals for her shoes (sooz). She signals for more (and says moh). She climbs the chairs and walks across the table...ok; so this one isn't actually allowed, but watching her learn to climb and take risks still makes me proud.

We've had a pretty busy weekend. Yesterday we took her to an Easter egg hunt/extravaganza. We were 1o minutes late, which means we missed the hunt. But there was a big bunny for her to get pictures with; so we waited in line for him. Well, she HATED the bunny. Would not touch. And then we saw that there was food; so we went and got her a cookie. No surprise here, she LOVED the cookie. While she ate the cookie, we waited in a long line for pony rides. Her reaction to the pony made her reaction to the bunny seem downright heartwarming. She clung to me and wouldn't even get near the pony. She normally likes animals...so we weren't expecting that. I didn't think she'd actually ride the pony. But I thought she'd at least pet the pony. So the highlight of the extravaganza was clearly the cookie. Which means we could have saved ourselves some stress and effort. Oh well.

Later in the day we had an experience that was more traumatizing to Momma than to Annabella. You see, Annabella's hair has been constantly in her face. She refuses to wear bows, and won't sit still for me to tie her hair back. So we took her in for her first haircut.

Here's a before picture that shows why we really needed to get the haircut.

And here's a couple pictures that show that Annabella did NOT like getting her haircut one bit. (Although I still maintain that I am more traumatized, at least long term.)

And here's the best post haircut picture we have right now. I'll try to get some better ones soon.

The woman cut her bangs much shorter than I would have liked, and I'm really not sure I like the haircut at all to be honest. But I'm not sure she could have had a haircut that I would actually like. And they gave us a certificate that says "For meeting all the requirements of a first haircut with courage and bravery". (Yes, the certificate made me tear up. I blame the pregnancy hormones...)

Today a couple of friends watched Annabella for a few hours so that Jason and I could go on a date (gasp!). Our friends have 2 small dogs, and Annabella love love loved the dogs. I think she's going to start asking for a dog as soon as she figures out that it's a possibility. It's always a little nerve-wracking leaving your kid with somebody new, even somebody you trust. But at the end of the day, everybody had a smile on their face. We really should take advantage of our babysitting friends more often. Getting a couple hours out is nice, and I think they spoil Annabella rotten. For instance, where Mommy and Daddy are too mean to chase her up and down the stairs over and over again, the babysitters think it's cute and put up with it for much longer than we do :) So it's really a win-win.

I still can't believe my little girl is 1.5. It seems like just yesterday she was a tiny little ball curled up asleep on my chest, head buried straight into my skin. I remember staring at her for hours just falling more and more in love with her, wondering how this perfect little creature could be mine. I can't imagine loving her more, but my heart just explodes in new ways for her every day. And now my precious, tiny, sweet baby isn't so tiny, and she's not much of a baby anymore. She is still the most precious, sweetest thing I've ever had the pleasure of seeing though. And I love her so much it hurts.

Sometimes life just doesn't make sense

2010-03-17T10:14:00.000-04:00

In my mind, people get sick, act sickly/have symptoms, and then we find out they're sick. The bigger the disease, the more obvious it is that something's wrong. I mean, that's the way it's supposed to work, right?

Apparently this just isn't the way it works with cancer.

For those of you who don't know my Grandpa, he is strong, vibrant, full-of-life. He's 70+ years old and still works 70 hour weeks. He puts in hundreds of tomato plants every year, along with peppers, lettuce, carrots, potatoes, corn, and so many more. His garden is always immaculate, and his vegetables are always tasty. And out of nowhere he has stage-4 diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

And last night we found out that Jason's Aunt Cindy has acute leukemia. Her symptoms? Nonexistent. She found out because of a routine blood test. Aunt Cyn is strong and passionate and charismatic and not at all sickly.

So how does this even make sense? It just doesn't.

Kisses

2010-03-16T13:29:00.001-04:00

Little Miss Annabella refused to give Mommy kisses all weekend. She did however wave bye and blow kisses to the fan when I turned it off. I guess we know her priorities.

A tale of two trash cans

2010-03-12T10:24:00.000-05:00

Our kitchen trash can is open at the top, which means that Annabella can throw whatever she likes into it. After completely losing her Aqua-Doodle pen, finding one of her balls in there, and digging through it looking for another, I decided it was high time to get a new trash can.

For those of you who don't know my husband well, he's kind of resistant to change. Especially small little changes involving things like trash cans. And he liked our trash can. But even Jason could see that a new trash can was in order.

So I'm at Target with Annabella, and I'm in the trash can aisle. And there are a bunch of different options. But the most expensive option is almost identical to our current trash can, except with a lid and a step that opens that lid. But it's the most expensive one. And I could get another one that would do the job for 50% less. And my husband is also super frugal. So I stand there and weigh the merits of both, and finally decide that I should go with the near-identical more expensive one.

I bring it home, and Jason's not 100% thrilled with it (the lid mechanism causes it to stick out a little farther from the wall), but all in all he's pretty happy. So we set it up, and life is good. Until Annabella grabs a tissue from the box, wipes her nose, and toddles over to the trashcan. And of course she can no longer throw her tissue away. So we say, hey, we'll just keep both trash cans in the kitchen. It's not ideal, but we can just throw out stuff that isn't gross in the open one, and use the closed one for everything that's nasty. And it looks a little ridiculous, and nobody ever quite remembers to throw stuff in the right trash can, but it's basically worked for us for about a week.

And then last night Jason spied our little toddler lifting the lid of the new trash can to throw something out. She's just too smart for her (and our) own good!

Really, we should have known better. If she's smart enough to grab a tissue from the box, wipe her nose, and throw it out, we should have realized that she'd figure out how to get the lid of the new trash can open. But still!

I'm guessing this won't be the last time she outsmarts us.

FIRST Screen results

2010-03-05T09:37:00.000-05:00

I can't believe how much easier this pregnancy has been emotionally than last one. Our little one is measuring right on track, and we just got the screening results back. A woman my age has a 1/590 chance of having a baby with Down's Syndrome. The screen showed the chances as being decreased to 1/3200. They don't give numbers for trisomy 18 with this screening, but we screened negative for it this time around. Woohoo!!!!

I know it's early, and there's still plenty of time left to be scared out of my mind. But I'm just so happy and thankful that everything seems so perfect right now.

Updates

2010-03-03T10:43:00.000-05:00

Monday was an intense day.

I got a phone call from a good friend in the afternoon who told me she's pregnant! Yay! And then I talked to another person I'm close with that night who told me she's pregnant as well! I'm so excited and happy for both of them. (Sorry for being a bit vague...it's not my announcement to make, and I think both parties are trying to keep it mum for a bit.)

And then I got a phone call from my Mom at 10:30 that night. Grandpa was in the hospital, and they'd found a crazy huge mass of cancer under his ribs. The details are slowly trickling in as tests are done and they are finally getting to talk to oncologists, but it seems that he has lymphoma. The giant mass is about 12 inches in diameter, and it has many fingers spreading into other areas of his body. He went to the hospital on Monday because he was in a lot of pain, and it seems that the pain is caused by the cancer being wrapped around nerves and also around his aorta, tightly enough that it is cutting off circulation to his legs. The good news in all of this though is that lymphoma tends to be highly treatable, and the doctor even used the word curable today. They still have to do a biopsy to determine exactly what variation he has, but it does appear that there is reason to be hopeful.

Even though in times like this life feels as if it should stand still, that is not what happens. I called Grandpa, and he wants us to wait to come up; so we're waiting. And during the waiting we met with a nutritionist about Annabella. Jason and I are still concerned about her weight. We have many reasons to believe that she is perfectly healthy, but we'd feel a lot better if we could at least get her up over the 5th percentile. (As an aside, I'm tired of telling people my kid is small only to hear that their kid is small too, only to find out their definition of small is the 25th percentile. If Annabella hit the 25th percentile, I think we'd throw a party to celebrate we'd be so excited.) But the meeting with the nutritionist went well. She thinks Annabella is eating enough calories, and seemed to be happy in general with the types and quantities of food she's eating too. She gave us a few suggestions to try to boost the overall nutrition of her meals, but we left the appointment feeling pretty good. The next step is to see an allergist, just to make sure we're not overlooking possible food allergies that would keep Annabella from absorbing nutrients properly.

Then today I had an appointment to screen for a couple possible genetic problems with the pregnancy. It's not at all the same screening we did last time, which caused us so much stress. And this one is supposed to give less false "positives". Also, this one comes with an ultrasound which dated the pregnancy. And the ultrasound was awesome. We got to see the sonographer (Dorette) who did most of our ultrasounds with Annabella, which was really nice. And the baby looks perfect. We saw little arms and legs and feet and his/her little nose. Dorette measured some space as part of the screening, and the measurement came back perfect; so that gave us some confidence that everything with this screening will be good. Dorette also verified that everything looks ok, no cysts or anything that could be problematic. And she showed us a trick that is somewhat predictive of sex. She said not to go out and buy paint yet, but she thinks we're having another little girl! I'll try to get the pictures scanned in soon to post. I can't believe there's a real little baby in there!

Odds and Ends

2010-02-26T14:17:00.000-05:00

The love affair at daycare continues. Annabella and Caleb were the last 2 toddlers to be put down for their naps. Annabella chose this time to repeatedly steal Caleb's paci, run away, turn around and wave the paci at him until he chased her, then put it in his mouth when he caught up. Ms Jen, Annabella's teacher, said she's never seen 2 kids so young flirt like that.

Annabella now says "uh oh". The "uh" is squeaked out, and the "oh" is longer and very drawn out. Like multiple seconds drawn out. Jason and I laugh every time we hear it because it's just so darn cute.

She's learning new things every day. And I'm constantly amazed at what she understands.

Jason is recovering nicely from surgery, which is good, as my patience is wearing thin. I'm good at being nursemaid when it's necessary, but not when it's just more convenient. Meaning, if he actually needs help doing something, regardless of what it is, then I will happily do it. But if he wants me to do something for him because it's easier for me to do it than for him to do it, then I get annoyed but do it anyway. I understand that it takes him longer to do each thing and that it makes more sense for me to do each individual task, but that argument breaks down when you look at the sum total of tasks. And he's getting more and more capable with each passing day. Thankfully, after finally telling him that I was going to lose my mind, he's stepped up and is doing a lot more. Which is honestly good for both of us. Really, I needed the help, and he needed the activity. So win-win.

And when I say I needed the help, I really needed the help. Pregnancy is kicking my butt. I am bone tired, and most days feel like a struggle. On top of that, I am and have been sick for the last week or so. My throat is hurty and scratchy, and I've lost my voice. Trying to talk actually hurts. (I know I owe a bunch of people phone calls...so if you're waiting for one, I'm sorry! I'll hopefully remember to call when my voice is back.) And Annabella has been sick too, which means she is in a terrible mood at the end of the day and really does not want me to put her down. And then she's waking up more in the night as well, which means finding rest is even harder. So I'm honestly really struggling to take care of myself right now. Normally this would be no big deal and I could accept it as just part of being a mom, but taking care of myself is suddenly more important again because while I'm carrying BG2, taking care of myself is taking care of them. So on top of just not having the luxury to take care of myself and get the rest I need, I also am feeling a fair amount of guilt about it.

But the good news is that Jason should be off crutches in 1 more week! And he's able to do so much more than even 1 week ago. So I can definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel. Just a little more ways to go.

Making out at daycare

2010-02-19T13:17:00.000-05:00

I dropped Annabella off this morning and Caleb came over and hugged her and kissed her. She kissed back. I would say that this is her first kiss, but by the looks of it, I don't think that's true.

Caleb's a couple month's younger; so Annabella is proving to be quite the cougar :)

After a couple minutes of this affection, Annabella decided she was done. She screamed. Then she tried to get away and Caleb followed her, at one point basically tackling her until the teachers pulled him off. I think he's smitten. And who wouldn't be?

I think I might have to have the birds and the bees talk with my little one much earlier than anticipated.

Still Pregnant

2010-02-05T16:37:00.000-05:00

I don't feel pregnant.

With Annabella, I was so excited and focused on my pregnancy. Not that I always really felt pregnant with her, but it was more of an amazement at there being a little being growing inside of me. Like, could it really be true?

With BG2, I just don't have the time or energy to be excited or focused. Annabella still demands much of my attention, and while I don't emotionally feel pregnant, my body is certainly suffering some of the side effects. I feel like my body instantly aged 20 years. Walking from my car to my office suddenly makes me feel tired. I wake up many times a night to go potty. And I'm bone-tired in a way that makes me feel delirious. Oh, and I wake up in the middle of the night starving.

You would think with all of those physical symptoms that my emotional self would catch up, but not so much. Maybe it's the wow factor again. Maybe it will all feel more real when someone is kicking me from the inside.

But right now, the little girl who isn't happy unless she's in Mommy's arms is trumping any time I might have to sit and relax and marvel at the little one inside. And while I feel a certain amount of guilt over this, I'm not losing any sleep over it. If I remember my last pregnancy correctly, soon enough the little one inside will force me to take the time. Because while I feel tired now, I know it's only going to get worse.

Heartbeat

2010-01-29T16:48:00.000-05:00

I saw my baby's heartbeat yesterday! So exciting.

We called Annabella Baby G. I'm thinking I'll call this baby BG2, at least until we finally come up with a name.

Besides seeing the heartbeat, my first baby appointment was refreshingly simple. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, because it was one thing after another with my first pregnancy. And yes, I'm not nearly far enough along to see a lot of the problems that could lie ahead, it was still nice to have an appointment that showed that I have one baby who's heart is beating, right on schedule.

And yes, I do mean one baby. The doctor verified that I will not be having twins. So yay! Not that I had any reason to believe that twins were a possibility, but still. One baby was hard. One baby with a toddler I imagine will be much harder. Two babies with a toddler...well, I don't even want to go there. And now I know I don't have to.

Besides that, Annabella has been sick with RSV, which is really just a bad cold. She's been miserable and grouchy, but I think she's coming out of it. Cross your fingers that Jas and I don't get it.

Jason most likely has torn his ACL the rest of the way through and will need reconstructive surgery on his knee. He's getting an MRI this week to confirm and to see what other damage is in his knee, but the test the doctor did for a torn ACL is diagnostic...so there's little reason to think he could have been mistaken. That will be tough, and Jason is not happy about it. Not that I can blame him. If you know my husband well, you know he's kind of a wuss when it comes to things like blood and such. Plus the rehab from this surgery is pretty intense. If all goes well though, he could be rid of the knee problems he's been battling for the last 8 years.

Annabella turned 16 months old yesterday, which is kind of a scary time for me. I was in a pretty horrific car accident when I was 16 months old; so I'm holding my breath waiting for her to make it to 17 months. I know that this is not really rational, that there's no reason to really believe that she's in more danger this month than any other. And yet it doesn't matter. 17 months can't come soon enough.

Time to run. Gotta get home!

Pink Lemonade

2010-01-12T12:14:00.000-05:00

This past Sunday was my birthday. I'm now 29. I wish I could say that I was growing older gracefully, but I'm not. Something about approaching 30 is making me painfully aware that I am in fact mortal and will in fact die one day. I'm guessing this is just a stage of life and that I'll get over it, but right now I'm freaking out about having less than 1 year left of my 20s.

I did get a couple pretty awesome birthday presents though, which certainly softened the blow.

The first awesome gift: Annabella sorta slept through the night! Sorta because she did wake up a few times and make some noise, enough to wake me. But by the time I got upstairs to her door, she was back asleep. This was only the 3rd night ever that I haven't had to visit her in the middle of the night; so it was super exciting.

Annabella's unexpected gift was all the more exciting when I got my second awesome birthday gift, which was a positive pregnancy test! So yes, it's super early, and yes, a billion things could go wrong between now and September, but I don't care. I'm singing it from the rooftops anyway. Jason and I are going to have another baby!!!

When I was pregnant with Annabella, I craved pink lemonade ALL THE TIME towards the end of my pregnancy. This was especially odd given the fact that I don't really care for lemonade, pink or not. So I'm curious to see what it is I'll be craving this time around.

Right now though, the one thing I'm craving more than anything has nothing to do with food. I'd be the happiest girl on the planet if Annabella would repeat her birthday gift. Momma's already oh so tired...

New Pictures

2010-01-06T14:39:00.000-05:00

Our friend Justin took some more pictures of Annabella for us in early December, just in time for Christmas. As always they turned out wonderfully. Here are two of my favorites:

We have more pictures from the set as well as some of our favorites from 2009 up at http://annabellag.shutterfly.com/.

Lions and Tigers and Molars, Oh My!

2010-01-06T12:16:00.000-05:00

Annabella is seriously teething right now. She's got 1 full molar in, another one almost completely in, one about half-way in, and one just pushing against her gums with little spikes pushing out. And for the most part, she's handling it like a champ. We've had a couple rough patches with the sleep and such, but really, after stories I've heard and nights we've had with ear infections, it's so much better than I expected.

What else is new with Annabella? Well, just about everything. Everyday it seems she's learned something new, and everyday we get a new glimpse of her personality. I'm a little afraid that she's going to be a wild one. It's not really that she misbehaves...it's more that she runs instead of walks, climbs everything in sight, and has quite the stubborn streak.

Her newest thing that I'm just loving is she'll just walk around and then suddenly burst into giggles. I don't know what it is that's cracking her up, but I know it's her giggles that are cracking me up. So much fun.

And last night I hid behind a book. I'd peak my eyes out to see her and then gasp and yank my head back behind the book. Annabella was laughing so hard she cried.

We had her 15 month checkup yesterday, and it went well. The doctor assuaged my fears about her small size, better convinced me that she's doing just fine and might just be tiny. What really made me feel better though was her height measurement, which at just over 29" put her at the 15th percentile. This is quite the improvement from last time where she was stuck at the 5th percentile. So yes, I might end up with the only 2 year old I know who still is required by law to ride in a rear-facing carseat, but at least she is growing well in height, even if her weight leaves something to be desired. And hey, at 15th percentile height, her 50th percentile head doesn't look as big!

I know I haven't updated this very frequently, but it's because I've been busy at work. Which if you've heard me talk about my job, you know that being busy at work is quite an exciting thing for me. I'll try to remember to post though even if this busy streak continues.

Thanksgiving - the recap

2009-12-03T17:13:00.001-05:00

Thanksgiving was awesome this year. Fun times with family and friends and more yummy food than I'd like to talk about.

Riding the airplane alone with Annabella? Not so much fun it turns out. Lots of struggling to handle all the stuff (even though I packed very light and Jason had taken most of our stuff up already). Lots of screaming (Annabella's, not mine). Lots of running around like a maniac (well, this was both of us...she ran, I followed.) There was even a diaper incident or 2. Oh, and a possible flashing of an old college friend while trying to discreetly nurse Annabella in the airport. So pretty much everything I could have imagined going wrong kinda did go wrong. But then she slept like a rock on the second flight, and everything was good.

Still though, we're taking the car from now on. Or at least I'm not flying alone with her. No thanks. Especially when we figured out that driving through the night is really not so bad and that she'll actually mainly sleep in the car. And especially now that I remember that I can take 5 unpaid days off a year...and that our 2 plane tickets made my extra days at work close to even. :(

But yay family, friends, and food!

On Thursday we went to Jason's Aunt Jo's. There were close to 30 people there, and outside of an incident with an over-excited teenager and a yippy little dog when we first arrived, everything went great! Annabella played and ate and didn't scream at all. Then we went to Jason's Aunt Linda's. And again, she was great! Jason's cousin Koral was there and chased after Annabella and played with her, which gave us a break and Annabella thought was great fun. Then Annabella actually slept well Thursday night even after going to bed late and being all out of her routine. So all sorts of awesome.

Friday I spent the day with Corrie. Which was SO NICE. Spending time with Corrie minus baby makes me feel like I'm slipping into my old skin a little bit. And it's nice to feel like me. Of course I missed my baby like mad, but getting quality girl time is pretty much the awesome.

Then we went to Grandma G's for dinner. Where Annabella ate an entire piece of pumpkin pie, much to Jason's dismay. But it was Grandma G's made from scratch real pumpkin pie! And when Grandma G saw Annabella loved the little tiny sliver of a piece I gave her, she cut a big ole piece for her. I didn't let Annabella eat much of the crust...so there's that at least. But Annabella already understands that there are just some foods that are just sooo good, and that Mommy and Daddy barely let her have them. So when she gets something with sugar she doesn't mess around.

Saturday we spent the morning and early afternoon at my Mom's. We saw Grandpa M and Millie, and my old next door neighbors. I'd told Mom in advance that we did NOT want a big Thanksgiving dinner, that salad sounded about right. Well, we didn't have turkey. There's that I guess. But the amount of food that was served certainly rivaled a Thanksgiving feast. My tummy felt like bursting, but so yummy. And seeing everybody was great. Annabella at this point was starting to get a little bit tired of the nonstop new-ish people though. But she still did pretty great.

We spent Saturday evening with Grandma B and Ray. Annabella got some down time, which was nice. Then after she went to bed I got to see an old friend from high school. (Ashley, if you're reading this, you totally forgot your hat at my Gma's.)

Sunday we say Aunt Katy. Always fun. And we went out to see some property Gma and Ray own. My grandma's grandparents actually originally owned it. Walking on land your great great grandparents walked is quite a feeling. It made me all nostalgic for where I grew up.

But Sunday was a little more somber. I said goodbye to somebody I never really knew, but somebody who'd impacted my life anyway. Because that somebody, in May of 1982, poked a baby girl to keep her awake after a terrible car accident. And that somebody in all likelihood kept that baby girl alive. So standing there, looking over his coffin, telling my baby girl that this man had saved her Mama's life when I was a baby girl...well it certainly made me catch my breath. And made me so very grateful to this man on this Thanksgiving weekend.

Sunday was capped off though with a parade through my hometown which Annabella loved, even if she doesn't quite understand candy yet. And then it was bedtime routine time and then time for driving home through the night and back to work the next morning.

Overall, it was a pretty amazing Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving

2009-11-25T10:31:00.000-05:00

I'm so excited for turkey day this year, which is a bit unusual for me. I like Thanksgiving, but it's not usually a holiday I look forward to. This year though, I have Annabella. And I'm so excited for her. She'll get to see a bunch of family that loves her to pieces. She'll get to try all sorts of yummy new foods. And I'll get to spend 4 days with her where hopefully she'll be healthy the whole time (quick, knock on wood).

I haven't posted much over the past month or 2, and honestly, it's been a tough time. Annabella has been sick continuously since about October 14th. Even though she's got a rash covering her tiny little body, I think she's finally getting past it. I know the rash is counter-indicative of getting better...but I still think she's getting better. Why you ask? Well, we've had 2 nights in a row of sleep that was not terrible. Granted, it still wasn't great, but I'll take not terrible, especially 2 nights in a row of it. And last night, my little baby floored me with the amount of food she shoved in her face. I think that what I thought was her normal appetite was actually her not having much of an appetite. So when the docs would ask how her eating was, I would say that it was about normal. But when she's been sick for so long with so few breaks (even before Oct 14th she's had so many colds and ear infections), I just didn't know. And then this morning she ate way more than normal again.

So yeah, I'm pretty much stoked that my baby might actually get to enjoy spending time with family and eating new foods without feeling like crap.

Halloween

2009-11-05T21:17:00.000-05:00

We dressed Annabella as a bumblebee for Halloween and took her to a couple of neighbor's houses.

Pictures of the Birthday Cupcake

2009-11-05T21:05:00.001-05:00

And she's off!

2009-10-30T19:48:00.000-04:00

Annabella figured out the walking thing tonight!

Jas and I were sitting a few feet apart, farther than ever before, and I had the video camera out (we'll post it later). So of course we urge her to walk back and forth. She stands up and takes 12 steps to me! Then she goes back and forth and back and forth. And then, she just up and walks past Daddy. And she just walks and walks. Her record without touching her hands to the ground was 17 steps. Before tonight I think it was 8. She just kept going.

My heart is bursting.

A good day

2009-09-28T22:06:00.001-04:00

We had Annabella's ENT follow-up this morning, and she can hear! Really, the difference was night and day. She was yammering on through the test and was still looking for the really quiet sounds. I could barely hear some of the sounds over top of her talking, but she was still looking for them. So that was pretty much awesome.

I almost missed it, but I got to be with my baby at 12:21pm. I held her in my arms and told her how much I love her.

We made chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting. Jas and I sang happy birthday and gave Annabella her cupcake. She played with it for what seemed like minutes before finally putting a morsel in her mouth. One bite was all it took. The feeding frenzy began. She had this goofy smile that seemed to say "What is this and where has it been my whole life?" She just kept ramming more in.

Then we got her hand print in a clay mold we have. One of Annabella's Grandmas got us a set of molds for ages 1-5. It took several (okay, maybe a couple dozen) tries, but we got the hand print. And I will cherish it forever.

Then we played games on the floor in the kitchen. Annabella was a couple feet away from me, and Jas and I were cheering her to take a step. After a few minutes, she stood up and walked the 7 steps it took to get to me. My heart, already swollen with pride, swelled up even more. I held my baby and told her how proud I was, and that she would always be my baby.

I really can't ask for a better day.

Pix of Annabella with cake coming soon.

One year ago today

2009-09-28T11:55:00.000-04:00

One year ago today, at 12:21pm, I was introduced to my favorite person on the planet. I looked at her and kissed her head and fell in love. Everything she did was magic, and we treated her like our perfect little china doll.

I had no idea how fully she would change my life, and I had no idea my heart could hold so much love. Now our precious little baby isn't so little anymore. And she's not a china doll anymore either. She's our adventurous, curious, smiley, happy, determined, little toddler. And we couldn't love her more.Annabella, I hope the next year brings you lots of fun, lots of mischief, lots of laughs. I can't wait to see how you grow. No matter what though, you'll always me mommy's little girl.

First Steps

2009-09-25T17:27:00.000-04:00

Annabella took her first steps for Dada yesterday. Mama wasn't there. Mama was home 5 minutes later. To say Mama is bummed that she missed the big moment is an understatement. To say Mama is beaming with pride is also an understatement.

Way to go baby.

Mistake

2009-09-16T12:33:00.000-04:00

On Wednesday, September 9, Dr Raymond D Cook put tubes in my baby's ears.

On Friday, September 11, Dr Raymond D Cook drove drunk on a road, not far from my house, 40mph over the speed limit. He crashed his Mercedes into a 20 year old ballerina's Hyundai, killing her. (Article)

I'm not certain how to process this.

But I am sad. I am sad for the victim, and I'm sad for Dr Cook. Her life is gone. His isn't far from it, at least not the life he knew.

And I'm scared. Because Dr Cook seemed like a genuinely good guy, and he was very reassuring, and I trusted him. And now I don't know if that trust was misplaced. I have no reason to believe that he's been anything but a great doctor in all of our dealings with him. But really, how would I know? Did we luck out that my baby is fine? Did this man, who I liked, who put others at risk by getting behind the wheel after drinking do the same with the knife? I just don't know. And my baby is fine. So I'm not worried that he screwed something up with her, because I don't think he did. But it's my job to protect her, and once again, I should have done better.

And I'm confused. Because I have other friends who drink and drive when they shouldn't. Who can't seem to control the drink. Who are one bad night away from throwing their lives away. They are good people. Good people with a problem. Not unlike Dr Cook.

And I don't know why, maybe it's just because I met him and liked him, but anger isn't what I'm feeling. I see a man who made a tragic mistake, and he and his family are paying dearly for it.

Date night!

2009-09-15T21:27:00.000-04:00

Jas and I went on an actual date Sunday night. A date where we put on nice clothes. And ate a fancy meal with each other. And didn't worry about being home for the bedtime ritual.

And Annabella did great! This for me is the most exciting part, because it means that maybe, just maybe, we can do this again in the future.

For our date night, we hired one of her daycare teachers to come over and watch her, which was great because we trust Miss Kim and we figured Annabella wouldn't be freaked out with Miss Kim being the one putting her to bed since she sees her all the time. The not-so-great part of hiring Miss Kim was the price tag: $12/hour! Sure she's a professional and all, but I remember getting paid like $3/hour when I would babysit. So even though having her over gave us peace of mind, I don't think we'll be using her sitting services on a regular basis. But now that we've seen that Annabella can handle the bedtime routing with somebody else, hopefully we can try it again with a cheaper option :)

Ears

2009-09-15T21:14:00.000-04:00

Warning: Some of what I talk about below is just gross. Read at your own risk.

I think we might be finally beating this last round of ear infections. Finally. The tubes and antibiotic ear drops weren't enough. Annabella's now on an oral antibiotic called Vantin in addition to the ear drops.

For those of you keeping track, she's already been on Augmentin and Omnicef for these infections, and neither of them kept the infection away. After she got the tubes, there was a bunch of gross drainage that was supposed to go away after 36 hours. We called the ENT on Friday when they were still gross, and we were told that it was ok to still be draining. Sunday was supposed to be the last day on the ear drops, and there was still a TON of gross drainage. So much in fact that we had to use the nose bulb to suction her ear before we put the drops in. Yum. Annabella would stick her fingers in her ears and it would make a juicy sound and come out covered in puss/mucous. Double yum.

So we went to the pediatrician, and she said that she thought there was probably so much drainage that we were unable to get the drops to where they needed to be and put us on the Vantin, which she said was an older but good antibiotic. Apparently it's not prescribed that often anymore, as we had to call 30 pharmacies before we found one that was open on Sunday and carried it. Fun times.

As of today, there's still some caked on grossness on her ears, but no wet puss/mucous. So we might be over the hump. I can't tell you how happy this makes me.

The great Facebook experiment.

2009-09-10T23:47:00.000-04:00

So I'm trying my hand at Facebook, and I honestly don't think I care for it. Sure, I found a few friends from my past. And yes, it was kind of neat to find out what's happened with them.

But it feels kind of icky. I feel like Facebook is an internet stalker's dream come true. And I felt like a stalker friending some of these people. And I feel like a stalker leaving messages on their walls or IMing them. Rationally I know that if any of these people left me messages I'd be super pumped, but doing it the other way feels wrong.

So we'll see.

Plus, I accidentally friended someone from high school who I thought was somebody else. The guy I actually friended was a guy who made me super unconfortable in high school. I have some memory of him totally invading my personal space in a way that was uninvited and uncomfortable. So I unfriended him. Which made me feel like a tool.

Clearly I have a few things to learn if I'm to continue my journey into the land of Facebook.