41 Weeks

Well at this rate I will just end up giving birth to a toddler and sending her off to school. We are now a week overdue and just playing the waiting game, making absolutely no plans and always making sure that I am picking up my cell phone when it rings so people don't think that I am in labor laying somewhere in a corner of my house. I still feel good, fat, but good. Although last night I went to Joe's softball games and heard a lot of "God now I even feel bad for you and I'm a guy" comments, so apparently I am already starting to get the post-pardum look of death on me. :-)

If I push it too hard during the day I can start to feel some contractions come on that are pretty good ones but other than that just the normal ones. Although thanks to the amnesia that ensures that our planet stays populated I can't seem to remember what labor feels like. I remember whimpering, which I don't do much so it must have been bad but I couldn't describe now if I tried. She is sitting really low which is causing that gimp hip joint of mine to lock in and out of place, so when I stand up and sit down it has to adjust and is doing so at a much slower pace. Again I don't remember when that feeling goes away after delivery, maybe it was right away, that's what I am hoping for. On the bright side with her being so low the horrible heartburn is gone, I don't feel like I am going to breathe acid on anyone anymore...which is always a good thing.

41 Weeks and in honor of the brave women everywhere, one belly shot of the roadmap of stretch marks too. You'll notice little Austin's head in the first shot asking "Mama, what ya dune-nin?"

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Someone graduated...

Austin could "hang" on things all day, which means that we totally got our money's worth out of Little Gym because she didn't have the hand strength before we started.

Here she is with her real metal gradution medal. She was very proud of her necklace and while she did in fact "graduate" we are keeping her in the same class since Joe can come on Mondays.

Here's the little dare devil being flipped over backwards by Miss Alexis. Notice her two hands with the white knuckle grip.

And one that I forgot to post from the Free Comic Book day...gotta love face painting. :-)

Nesting

I don't think it's fair to call what women who are very pregnant do as "nesting". Some what because most of the time I hear it in a very accusatory fashion "oh here you go nesting", rather than "thank you for picking up after me". But the other part of me is like so many women and the entire house runs because I am either pushing it or dragging it. So while to the outside it looks like I am frantically getting the house ready for a new baby from the inside it should be taken as I am getting ready to not be here for 2-6 days while we are in the hospital.

It's become increasingly more comical to watch me take care of the house what with the waddling and the slow moment. Two days ago I was replacing a sprinkler head and had the hole all dug out when Austin came around the corner with a shovel full of dirt and threw it in the hole, obviously trying to help. So I told her that we couldn't do that part yet and proceeded to spend the next 5 minutes digging back out the hole and clearing the muddy sprinkler line. You know what happens next to a very pregnant lady with giant feet and ankles...when I go to stand up to get the replacement part my elephantiasis takes over and kicks all of that said dirt back into the hole. :-( All I could do was laugh since I was now forced to sit back down and dig it back out. I spend a lot of everyday wheezing from coming up and down the stairs or standing still with one eye closed while my hip pops back in place. I had a crazy lady at Wal-Mart tell me last month that I was sure to deliver AT LEAST two weeks in advance because I was so huge...with my due date tomorrow I wish I could see that crazy old bat and let her know that her Yoda skills are far from superior.

If a butterfly flaps it's wings...

Remember the mom from my last blog that indicated that if I had started with a boy we wouldn't be having a second child. Well she is currently fighting for her life after being shot 5 times by her boyfriend just before he then turned his gun on that sweet little bendable boy and himself. This all happened just two hours after Little Gym on Monday and has rocked our little family to the core. Unfortunately with working at the Safe House here in town I generally know every women killed from domestic violence, for the most part I have even worked with them so it never gets any easier. But this is my first child killed in a domestic dispute. For the first time ever I am thankful that Austin is so young and I won't have to explain where Gavin is on Monday at Little Gym, pure evil is hard to describe to a 2 year old. The news is painting the parents relationship as this rocky and tumultuous one where something this horrible was just bound to happen. I can assure you that I spent the hour at Little Gym with them and thought nothing of problems between them or any signs of potential violence.

While we weren't close friends with either Gavin or his Mom we saw them every week and discussed parenting 2 year olds and laughed about the chaos that ensues and that little boy will be surely missed. Again, if a butterfly flaps it's wings...where can the effects be felt? As a mom of a child the same age I can't help but think about what will happen if she beats the odds and makes it, will it kill her inside to know that her little boy is gone. I wish I could be there when she wakes up if only to hug her...there aren't words for this type of situation but sometimes the energy that you pass along is enough.

On the home front Austin has gotten extra hugs and just enjoyed M&M's for breakfast. Some how the phrase don't sweat the small stuff just doesn't even come close to describing a situation like this.

What the hell were we thinking...

So it's time like this morning that I think to myself what the hell were we thinking with having a second child. The first one we just got into a routine, one where I can clean house and write emails...one that pretty much entertains herself and allows for me to get done the endless list of things that I have on my plate everyday. So what would two parents that are feeling the amazing effects of a 2 year old with a great routine do? Have a second child, one that will have no routine and will cause total and complete chaos for the next two years as this little pygmy did thus far. Ahhhh. Perfect! A Mom from Little Gym stopped me yesterday and pointed at my belly and said you know what if you had yourself a boy first you wouldn't be in that predicament spoken as a frazzled mom who at that very moment had to go over and check her son's neck after he did a forward hand spring off a mat onto the floor.

We have a friend that told me a while back how nice it was to see me out and about and looking amazing (right before I got pregnant again and turned back into a water buffalo) and not so run down. I must have looked like I needed her to elaborate some on the run down part because she then started in with the fact that while she was sure that children were amazing she was also sure that Austin was sucking the life from me and I was one step closer to the grave everyday. Now mind you that I don't remember being this tired or run down but apparently people were planning my eulogy and I didn't even realize it. And here we go again...back into a world of no sleep coupled with frustrations that naturally come from having an infant. After all Joe and I only truly started fighting when we had a baby, before that it was simple misunderstandings brought on by 80 proof concoctions of bad decisions on a Friday night. But now with Austin in the middle...someone that we would both dive in front of a moving train for...now that's fighting. That's the gloves are off and I take no prisoners kind of arguments because neither side is willing to give up. I think what we should do is add a second little person in the middle just in case there wasn't enough fuel before. ;-)

Here's my little routine girl drawing a picture for her current best friend Meowser. Playing quietly and peacefully by herself.

Hospice Care

My dogs both have an auto-immune disease that causes their immune system to attack the soft tissue in their bodies. That being said the soft tissue around the nose, eyes and ears coupled with their paws literally will develop scabs and fall off...picture leprosy if you will. Now before you starts feeling sorry for these pure-bred morons let me assure that in no way shape or form do these two idiots have any idea they are sick. We give them steroids to suppress their immune system so it doesn't attack them as much and other than the fact that they both put on weight easier than me at a donut shop now there really isn't much wrong with them. I can't take them jogging with me anymore since their paws are more sensitive so I had to put them on diet dog food...wow is that gross. You open the bag and when you would normally smell something of meat (unknown from what animal) now you get a giant waft of vegetables...bet that's tasty to a dog. The entire reason that I still call them "dummies" on a daily basis is because even though they are both old as hell and basically living in Hospice Care they will both on occasion do something as if they were puppies. Moose (this one was definitely a puppy mill dog here, we call him cute but slow) will chew up baby girls toys about once a week. And Ty (the older supposed to be smarter of the two) literally barks at anything including me if I change my clothes. At this point I am kind of hoping that he is going blind just so I can stop thinking that he just doesn't put two and two together.

The only part that I even feel semi guilty for is that I call them dummies all the time. Com'on Dummies go outside, upstairs or where ever else I am sending them. So baby girl was walking past them laying in my room the other day scoffed and said "dummies" and kept on walking. You know that you have hit rock bottom even in the animal kingdom when a two year old mocks you. I even tried after that to be nicer and call them things like "the boys" but while bending over for 10 minutes, 15 months pregnant picking of shards of a sand toy that Moose disintegrated...the old Crystal came back and they are rightfully being called dummies again.

King Sized Bed

There is only one bad part about a king sized bed...the bedding. Both the cost and having to make that monstrosity are just absolutely horrible. I just spent the last 20 minutes wrestling with sheets and the 6 pillows it takes to make the bed look complete not to mention the fact that the last set of sheets I bought were from Target and still cost over a hundred bucks, I can't even window shop at Bed Bath & Beyond. Which brings me to another point, I thought everything at Target was under a hundred dollars as some kind of rule? I could have sworn that I saw an entire patio set for less than those sheets.

Black star for Mom of the year award today goes to hearing Mommy, Mommy and turning around to find Austin with her head in a gallon sized zip lock baggie running around my office. Of course I did what anyone would do at this point and got mad at her because clearly I had no blame in this matter. ;-)

Speaking of Austin her newest nickname is "stinky feet", which she absolutely has earned. Her feet actually stink so bad after she plays around outside that I wash them before I will let her on the couch. I am hoping that this new "stinky poo-poo" feet smell (as Austin calls it) is just due to the new shoes I have her in and not something that she will be mortified from on first dates.

Toothbrush follies...

So while I am in the shower at my most vulnerable time clearly not being able to suck in and in need of makeup but not wearing any, Austin likes to point at me and say "yucky". While I can assure you I do not ask her to elaborate on what about me in this moment is yucky, I don't doubt she says this because she can't say "hot mess" yet. In order to get her peering eyes and criticism off me I relinquish my Sonicare toothbrush to her and allow her to take it on an adventure through my bedroom. I am the least worried person ever about germs so the thought of what she could be doing with my poor toothbrush never crosses my mind, until this weekend at which time I put that toothbrush in my mouth only to find it covered in dog hair and God only knows what else. Yummmm, that sounds awesome huh? In hindsight maybe I will just let her call me yucky.

Between J and I together I can guarantee you that we can find the most obscure and totally fun things to do on a weekend. I think it is because we are double dark, black belt warriors of Internet searching...or whatever else they would calls us at the International Web Search Finals. J managed to find that it was Free Comic Book day on Saturday so we headed on downtown for lunch, comic books at face painting. On the way to this extravaganza we drove through the Starbucks drive through and just in case people don't realize how powerful brand recognition is...Austin pointed at the sign and said "coffee", now that's marketing for ya. While making forced small talk with the drive through lady she asked when I was due, when I said "days from now" she said "yeah I can totally tell". Note to self those that are reading my blog, when you say this to a pregnant women who gets called yucky every morning by a two year old in the shower there is only one way for it to be taken. Good God do you look fat this morning! Just skip it, ask when they are due and say something like congratulations...that's it, nice and simple.

A bunch of nothing...

MSNBC ran an article in honor of mother's day describing what a stay-at-home mom is worth. They even included a link to a salary calculator to see what your actual pay should be in your area. Apparently here in the Springs I should be making $108,000 for watching PBS right now with Austin. I remember before I had kid(s) I always said that I could never be a stay-at-home mom, probably because I run on food, water and compliments and the chief complaint that I hear from my friends that have tried staying at home (none of which were successful) was that after every day of keeping everything is order it was hard to even get a thank you much less a pat on the back. I quite obviously have a very different type of situation going on since I get to stay at home with Austin and work, but it became painfully apparent the other day watching Austin figure something out for herself that if for some reason I needed to give up something in my life due to time constraints that work would be the first to go. While that would mean that we would in fact have to hunt our own food I just don't see another option until the girls are in school.

Not only do I refuse to celebrate a person's death but again I can't stand to see so much acceptable racism flying around after we "got" Osama bin Laden. I was listening to people talking about how we killed the Muslim or the jihad or worse yet...ones that I won't type on my blog. Labeling bin Laden a Muslim for any other reason than to describe what religion he believes in would be as much of a shame as to say the church that pickets soldiers funerals are Christians. They may believe that the work they are doing is in Christ's footsteps but I assure you that is only one part of their personality and thus only one of the descriptive words that can be used to describe them. If all Muslims were violent or believed what bin Laden did we would live in a much darker society since the Muslim religion is still the largest.

Two cases here in town lately have caused me to question some of our means in which to punish those that break the law. One case a mother left her two children in the bath tub while she went across the street to a store. The two year old got out of the bath tub and turned back on the hot water thus scalding and drowning his 8 month old brother. In the other case a mom and her aunt bound a two year old girl with tape and placed her in a cold shower for spilling her drink. She nearly drowned but didn't and is recovering in the hospital. So here's my issue. I believe the first mom is negligent and shouldn't be allowed to be around any one's children much less her own, but I do not believe that she is a danger to society. Whereas the second mom and her aunt tortured another human being, a helpless one at that. Of course with the way laws are written the first mom will end up having far greater punishment since the boy died and I completely agree that this poor little boy never has the chance to grow up and leave his childhood behind like the little girl in shower does, I just worry about the severity of punishment for negligent death vs. torture.

I found a website dedicated to what women's bodies look like after pregnancy that was truly inspirational. I know for myself that I have a lot of stretch marks not just on my stomach but my hips, thighs and just about anywhere else my skin could fit one in and they have been a source of embarrassment ever since they showed up. And even when I ran in the IronMan I still had a flabby midsection where the skin had been stretched to accommodate Austin's 8 pound body. I hated it and only found myself dreading what would be a worse hot mess after baby two. That is until I was reading through this website and found how many women look just like I did, some in shape some not, some all stretched to beat the band like me and some not...but all totally exposed and totally fine with it. It was a great feeling to read through their updates about how miraculous their bodies were in allowing a whole other (or multiple) person to grow inside them. Just in case any of you need an inspirational website today...http://theshapeofamother.com.

Cousins...our first friends.

Watching Curious George together...or "monkey" as Austin refers to it.


Playing with bubbles on a beautiful Colorado day.

A big sigh of relief...

We had an appointment with a doctor yesterday to see about giving birth naturally to a breech baby. He walked us through some of the scarier scenarios while I gritted my teeth, but all the while he was very nice and made me feel better about the upcoming decisions. Then to check the baby's position we went and had an ultrasound only to find out that she had flipped and was head down. :-) It must have happened the day before which I think I could feel. I was walking to the door to let the dogs in and had this sharp sudden pain in my lower abdomen, looking back at the feeling it was probably her head finally resting on the lower section of my stomach. I was so happy in the ultrasound room that I almost started to cry, which I mentioned to Joe and he reminded me that I cry for everything else I might as well cry when I'm happy too. ;-) I won't be sad to see the additional hormones go, they definitely make me more of a "crier" which I don't need any help with.

So now we start the hurry up and wait part - which I am extremely excited about. I am even super excited about the pain, and puking on myself and everything else that went along with it. Although I must say in the day and age when we can put a man on the moon it still baffles me that we can't narrow down a delivery date past a 5 week window. Being in the 38th week we are looking at sometime between this afternoon and next month...comforting to say the least. :-)

We picked up a new couch on Sunday, we had recliners in the living room which were great but didn't allow for much seating and it's tough to saw Austin in half so she can sit on both our laps. Austin has since turned the living room into her own jungle gym, which I can't blame her because I would have done the exact same thing when I was young.

This was our living room last night while I was busy cooking dinner. :-D