Three months to go

It looks like my stomach is going to swallow up my firstborn in this shot. And I still have three more months to go...yikes.

On strange toddler behaviors and sales

This morning, as I was getting ready for work, I noticed Olivia was carrying around her Easter basket throughout the house. Inside were not the plastic eggs from Easter that are now cluttering our house, no. She prefers to carry around a pair of my underwear from the basket filled with (clean yet still unfolded) laundry that is sitting on my living room floor. Sometimes she like to put the underwear on her head.
I also caught her licking the kitchen floor the other day (????). But that's nothing unusual, since she also enjoys eating rocks and dirt when we are playing outside.
I'm hoping this is typical toddler behavior...or maybe she's just being silly like her dad. Yeah, we'll go with that.

In other news, I attended the Just Between Friends consignment sale that started yesterday and is going on through this weekend at the Reading Expo Center last night (you can download a free pass from the Web site). You can get some seriously sweet deals there, and I did, but you have to be ready to wade through the sea of crazy-ass mommies and grabby grandmas to do it. I like to consider myself a friendly person (I even brought the volunteers some extra plastic bags I was storing in my car to take to the grocery store to recycle so they could use them to bag items, hello, I gave them my trash, how nice is that??), but some of these ladies were just downright insane, especially the one woman who quite literally pushed in front of me and grabbed a shirt right out of my hands as I was taking it off the shelf then proceeded to look at me, flash me a fake smile and say "Oh, I'm sorry, I was just looking at this."

Don't mess with these women and discount children's clothing.

But it was worth it, because I got a lot of really nice (gently used) stuff for Olivia and the baby and I also got some nice maternity clothes for work, all for under $50.

For those who are in this area, it's going on all weekend so I recommend it, although you might want to consider body armor.

24 Weeks

Dear Son,


My how you have grown, and your kicks and rolls are proof of that (really, I had no idea little boys liked to kick their mamas in the hooha quite so frequently!). Babycenter has been keeping me updated on your progress, just as it did with your big sister. There's only one problem: It keeps making me picture you as a fruit or vegetable rather than a human child.


For instance, a mere two weeks ago you were my little spaghetti squash, then last week, you were a large mango (delicious!). This week, you are an ear of corn but next week, you're going to turn into a rutabaga! Can you even imagine? I can't, because I honestly don't really even know what a rutabaga looks like! Is it like a turnip? I had no idea. So I looked it up. And quite frankly, I was appalled. If you come out resembling this beast, I might be a little disturbed (although I will still love you just as much):





Is that hair on top?

At any rate, my sweet boy, you don't have to worry, as you have many delicious fruits and vegetables in your future of all shapes, colors and sizes: cucumbers and cauliflower, jicama and pineapple, until finally, in week 37, when you are the size of a watermelon and then, finally, as Babycenter so nonchalantly points out, a PUMPKIN. I know you do not yet know how babies are born, my dear boy, but trust me on this: If you are actually shaped like a pumpkin and not an actual baby (which is hard enough to give birth to), I'm in big big trouble.

Love,
Mommy

I called in sick yesterday...

...because when you are 23 weeks pregnant and too tired to even eat dinner, collapsing on the sofa after putting the baby to bed and not even bothering to so much as open the refrigerator door (let alone watch "Lost"), you know it is a sign that you need to take a break and rest, especially for me, who pretty much lives to eat these days.

And how sweet it was.


Russ took Olivia to Toys R Us, where she ooohh'd and aaahh'd and pointed at everything in sight, prompting him to buy her several of those things (bubble mower? sure! princess bouncy ball? why not? baby doll that crawls and says mamamama and is MOTION DETECTED therefore driving all of us nuts? ABsoLUTEly. Gotta love daddies, they are total suckers for their daughters.) Anyway, I didn't mind his spoiling her one bit because it meant I got to relax and eat strawberries with whipped cream for breakfast while watching all kinds of delicious daytime TV.

Then, after they got home, Olivia ate lunch and we both fell asleep for more than TWO HOURS.
It was beyond heaven. I truly needed that.


And, the #1 thing that made my sick day most worthwhile?

The UPS man delivered this beauty (THANK YOU SO MUCH Girl's Gone Child!!):





This is totally going to be me (except I will probably not be wearing make-up and my hair might not be brushed, but still:


Now that is what I call SEXY.

Thank God I know how to swim

I'm not going to beat around the bush here, the truth is, I'm struggling these days.
It always seems to come in waves -- those times when life just seems so overwhelming and barely manageable -- and the waves almost always knock me down and leave me crawling back to my beach towel, covered in sand and a sour taste of salt water in my mouth. On the upside of this metaphor that got away from me, at least I'm still on the beach, basking in the sunlight.
The truth is, I'd love to really be in my metaphor, preferably with some sort of alcoholic drink in hand, but instead, I'm sitting here at my desk, which I am growing increasingly bitter towards with each passing day.
My office mailbox is more and more frequently containing letters of gloom and doom, informing me of the latest cuts our company is making due to the increasing difficulty the newspaper industry is facing. Then, a ray of hope appeared inside one of those gloom and doom letters a few weeks ago. The letter was searching for people to volunteer to cut back their hours a bit to help "The Company" out with their financial woes and to prevent potential layoffs. I jumped at this opportunity, because cutting back my hours by two days/week would mean I would be able to stay home with Olivia (and baby #2 when he arrives) for two days per week and take her out of day care, where she seems to be picking up more germs than I can personally handle at this point. But I'll get to that in a minute. Currently, Olivia spends part of her week with my awesome mom, who I am eternally indebted to at this point (even more than I was before) and a couple days at day care. The cost of day care for two days for Olivia is just shy of $100 per week. When the new baby enters day care, he will cost a little more than that for two days. That equals $200 per week for just two days in day care and that equals about two days' work for me salary wise. SO, it occurred to me that instead of working to pay day care for two days, if they would give me the option, why not simply stay home and not have to pay day care at all for those two days? I'd break even and I'd be MUCH happier. So, I submitted a proposal. They have yet to approve it and every day they give me no news, I grow more and more agitated.
So there's that.
Then there's my baby girl, who is finally getting over yet another bout of her latest illness: High Feveritis. Really it was some sort of virus that caused her temp to spike up to nearly 105 (104.8 at it's highest check) and stay there for about three days. Meds helped some, lowering it to around 102 or so, but it was scary and miserable and we haven't been getting much sleep as a result of it. Also, when we are awake, we (and by we I mostly mean Olivia) has been whiney, clingy and miserable, not unlike her daddy when he gets sick, which he coincidentally is, as well, since he allows Olivia to give him sloppy baby kisses. I tell him that her saliva is dangerous, but he does not heed my warnings.
And then there's me, pregnant, oh so very pregnant these days, tired, oh so very tired, and just clinging to that ounce of energy I'm mustering up, mostly in the form of my measly cup of coffee in the morning.
I'm slacking on way more than blogging these days, I've got a to-do list 8 miles long.

On the bright side, I won a brand-new, hands-free, top-of-the-line Medela breastpump, their Cadillac of breastpumps that costs about $400 via random drawing. This is sad that a breastpump is what gets me excited these days, I realize this, but what can I say? I never win anything, first of all, and more important, I won't have to lug around my old gigantic pump to work every day anymore, because this one is tiny and fits in the palm of my hand! I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm actually looking forward to pumping breastmilk! Well, maybe I won't go that far. But I am very excited.

While I am completely overwhelmed and tired these days, I'm also so thankful for my daughter and this little guy in my belly (who's seriously working on his dancing moves these days in my uterus) because they are keeping me going.

They are keeping me on that beach, soaking in those warm, wonderful rays, filled with gratitude, even though those waves keep on coming. They are the reason I can keep on swimming and not sink like a rock.

(My beach metaphor just reminded me of this one hilarious beach trip I took in high school with my friends, when I was skinny and able to pull off a teeny bikini, and we were all in the ocean...I dove through a wave in my bikini and stood straight up for all the world to see me, not realizing I'd lost the top of of my suit somewhere in the drink. I finally realized I was topless and managed to find my suit floating nearby, but the damage had been done on that day at that crowded beach in Ocean City, New Jersey.)

I'm glad I ate ice chips for 20+ hours last time

Eating during labor has no ill effects, study says
Wed, Mar 25, 2009 (Reuters Health) — Allowing a pregnant woman to eat during labor does not seem to have any impact on the outcome of the infant or mother, and doesn't increase the risk of vomiting, according to a new study.
The findings come from a study of 2426 pregnant women in labor who were allowed to eat lightly or to have just water during labor.
Researchers failed to see any significant differences between the two groups. Eating lightly during labor had no effect on the length of labor, the need for assisted delivery, such as the use of forceps, or Cesarean section rates.
Forty-four percent of women who ate a light diet during labor had a spontaneous normal vaginal delivery -- a rate identical to the rate seen in their peers who were permitted to have only water, Dr. Andrew Shennan, from King's College London, and colleagues report.
The cesarean delivery rate was 30 percent in each group, and rates of instrument-assisted vaginal delivery were 27 percent in the eating group and 26 percent in the water group.
The average length of labor was slightly but not significantly shorter in the eating group versus the water-only group (597 vs. 612 minutes).
The incidence of vomiting was nearly the same as well, at 35 percent and 34 percent in the two groups. There were no significant differences in any infant outcomes were observed between the groups.
The study appears in the March 24th Online First issue of the British Medical Journal.
In a commentary on the study, Dr. Soo Downe, from the University of Central Lancashire, UK, notes that the results "reinforce what has already been shown in many observational studies" and show that low risk women may eat lightly during labor.-- Reuters