Weekly Winners August 23-30

Bubble Lover

Cookie Monsters

The sunset of this pregnancy

He's waiting..


What doesn't belong in this picture??

Yep, that's Rocky the miniature horse who decided to check out the inside of the shop (much to Sean's dismay).

Sunflowers!

I was so excited when I drove home a couple of weeks ago and noticed the acreage just down the road was growing sunflowers. Not many farmers choose sunflowers as a crop around here and it just really made me happy. I've been waiting and waiting for their heads to finally open and this past week they did just that. There really isn't anything like 300 areas of blooming sunflowers. It's simply beautiful. Sunflowers as far as the eye can see. Sean, Wesley and I took a wagon right down there today to see them up close.





Sunflowers are cool, but playing in a dirt pile was far cooler to Wesley. :)

Good Appointment

I had my 36 week appointment today. First off, no weight gain which is pretty incredible since I haven't been in for almost 3 weeks (the doc was moving her college bound kid to CA). So that's a positive! Second, the baby is head down and ready to go (second positive!). Third, I'm one centimeter dilated (third positive!). I know, one centimeter is not much but at least something is happening. I walked around 3 centimeters dilated when I was pregnant with Wesley for three weeks and still ended up getting induced, but hey progress is progress.

I asked the doctor about how size relates to second babies. I was under the delusion that having a girl as baby number two would mean having a smaller baby than Wesley who was 8 pounds 12 ounces. She informed me that the majority of baby girls outweigh baby boys at birth. Something to do with Mother Natures way of continuing a species. So this led me to ask if this baby girl could be bigger than Wesley was and she's guessing this one will be within a few ounces of Wesley's birth weight. I totally expected to have a much smaller girl than boy. Strange stuff. I'm not worried though...it just surprised me.
That's about all, just wanted to share my good appointment news.

Little Mommy

I have to share this because it makes me chuckle every time. Wesley picked up a little plastic figurine at a garage sale in a bin with a bunch of free toys. He has a strange attachment to this little plastic woman. From the get go he called it "Little Mommy". Unfortunately, other than this figurine having red hair, there is little resemblance. As you can see:



Lately he has taken to pointing at the figurine and saying "Little Mommy" then pointing at me and saying "big, BIG Mommy". He even emphasizes the second "big" by putting his chin on his chest and saying it in a low voice. I think his eyes even bug out a little. Thanks Little Man, you sure know how to make a big, BIG Mommy feel good about her big self!

Random happenings

Some random things happening around our household.

• I blogged about our rabbit Nacho awhile back. Well Jessica bought Nacho's litter mate whom she named Pickles. Nacho and Pickles became inseparable and so we decided to keep them together. They stayed over at our house for a couple of months and now they are over at Jessica's house. We consider it joint custody. Today we went over to her house for our visitation period. Jessica set up a fenced in area for the rabbits to play in while she is outside with the kids. They sure enjoy running around and eating grass and the kids sure seem excited to be able to interact with them outside of their hutch.
  
  
  
  
  
• This past weekend was productive in the baby category. We moved some bedroom furniture around allowing room for the crib and dresser. I went out with the truck and picked up the crib and changing table from Jessica whom I'm borrowing it from (thanks so much Jessica!). I'm excited to assemble the crib and get everything set up this coming weekend. I never thought I'd have two kids in cribs at the same time, so it's a blessing that I'm able to borrow this stuff....buying another crib was not in the books (the checkbook that is).
  
  
• Sean has been busy working on a new project. When we went out to the old family farm the beginning of this month, Sean picked up an old Cub Cadet garden tractor. It's pretty old and had some mechanical issues that needed to be addressed. We thought it could come in handy around here with the implements that it came with. It has a snow blower, mower, rototiller and blade that attach to it. Sean also has plans to put a front loader/bucket on the front. He was told that the motor had seized up so he's been busy pulling it apart and de-gunking it. After rebuilding the carburetor and cleaning the rust out of the gas tank he fired it up and low and behold it runs! He drove it around the yard this weekend. The thing had been sitting for God only knows how long and Sean got it up and running in two weekends. Pretty awesome!
  
  
  

Weekly Winners August 16-22

Illegal cucumber picker (and eater).

It's a rough life.

Little boy, BIG momma

Portrait of a two year old

My Velcro dog

Picking wild flowers...I mean weeds

Holy cow, Sean with the camera!

Kitty love

35 Weeks

35 days left to go! It's officially crunch time. We are down to the wire and this baby is going to be here soon! I'm so excited. I know I've been bitching and moaning about this thing and that concerning this pregnancy but I'll be the first to say I've had it easy. This has been an easy pregnancy. With five weeks (or less) left I've decided I need to really quit with the belly aching and just enjoy it. This is, after all, the last time round.....two children is plenty for us.

-I'm happy to report that the swollen feet and ankles have disappeared. Not a clue why but I'm thrilled. Actually it probably has to do with the weather being down right chilly. Chilly in August, now that's a first. I also have to say that I've never before in my life seen it so lush in August. The grass is all green and thick, all the rain is just keeping it beautiful around here. It's been a strange summer. A wonderful summer to be pregnant during.

-I'm officially "ready" for this little lady to make her entrance into the world. I've mentally wrapped my mind around going through labor again and I feel at ease with doing it all over. I can only hope that this time round it will be as easy as it was with Wesley. I'm actually hoping for another induction, that was a wonderful experience that I wish I could just duplicate (maybe without high blood pressure being the catalyst).

-I got excited the other day at the grocery store when I picked up a container of cottage cheese and saw that it expired on my due date. I remember with pregnancy #1 how that made me nervous, it's truly different the second time round.

-Here's hoping this is the last belly picture taken and that she decides to come a week or two early. Hey, a girl can dream right?

Thumper

I've mentioned before that I picked up a stray on the fourth of July. Cody has been with us for over a month and it seems like he was never not here. He's somehow fallen nicely into the void that Cisco left. He's an all around good dog but recently I'm picking up on some "quarks" that he has. For one, the dog is obsessed with me. If he's in the same room with me, he'll be sitting or standing within a six foot radius. If I get up, he gets up. If we are outside he is stuck to my side like super glue. I found this endearing in the beginning. Now it's just a little annoying. When I walk around outside he's so close to me that he steps on the backs of my flip flops. I don't know if it's because I took him in or "rescued" him if you will, but the dog loves me. I've heard some animals respond to pregnancy in different ways. I've never experienced this with our dogs before so I can't say for sure, but it might be an answer as to why he sticks to me like velcro.

We kennel our dogs at night. The two big ones sleep in their kennels in the basement. This arrangement has worked out just fine until about two weeks ago. One night Cody decided he didn't care for this kennel sleeping stuff and started barking. I assumed he needed to go outside so, at one in the morning, I took him out. We stood out there, Cody glued to my side, and he just looked at me like "what are we doing out here?". So after several repeat nights of doing this I just left him out in the house. He sleeps on the rug in front of the couch in the exact place and position that Cisco used to sleep. And at 3am every morning when I stumble to the bathroom in the pitch black house all I hear is the loud THUMP THUMP THUMP of his tail against the hardwood floors. It's oddly reassuring knowing he's out there keeping watch and saying hi to me on my nightly treks to the bathroom. I guess we'll keep the lovable lug.

Watermelon Stealer

I was in line at Michaels this weekend buying craft paint when the man behind me said "You've been stealing watermelons haven't you?". I honestly didn't know what he meant, it took me a good 5 seconds to get it. Although I could have been distracted because his eyes each went off in different directions and he was wearing a sweat band around his forehead. I haven't seen a sweatband on a man since the 80's. Anyways, it got me thinking about watermelon and of course I started craving it. I've been eating my weight in watermelon lately (and that ain't easy if you've seen me) and thought I'd look up the nutritional benefits to it, if there were any at all. Turns out watermelon is a pregnant gals best friend. Who knew?

I found an article in FitPregnancy that just sings its praises and I thought I'd share a little:

"Watermelon eases heartburn and reduces swelling; its high water content (92 percent) and fruit sugars alleviate morning sickness and dehydration; and the minerals it contains can help prevent third-trimester muscle cramps. Ounce for ounce, watermelon is richer than tomatoes in lycopene, an antioxidant that protects against cancer and cardiovascular disease, boosts the body's immunity to infections and naturally raises the skin's SPF, according to Steven Pratt, M.D., author of SuperFoods Rx (HarperCollins, 2003).Even better news for pregnant women: A 2003 study in the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics found that daily lycopene supplements reduced the incidence of preeclampsia by 50 percent. Test subjects were given 4 milligrams of lycopene; a single serving of watermelon can have triple that amount. What's more, scientists have discovered that watermelon is packed with vitamins A, C and B6, as well as potassium and magnesium. These nutrients are important for the development of your baby's vision, brain, nervous and immune systems, and more. For you, potassium regulates water balance in the blood and body tissues during pregnancy. And you get all these benefits for less than 50 calories per cup."

Here is the whole article if you'd like to read it.
It sure makes me feel better about downing as much as I do.

In a rut

I'm in a blogging rut lately. Nothing of much interest is happening around here. I'm stuck indoors most of the time because of the heat, I'm just burning up all the time these days. The sheen of sweat on my face is just part of the "pregnancy glow" I suppose. It's truly getting old. Although this morning I did venture out to trim horses hooves. This is the second weekend I've done this as it takes three times as long as normal when you're carrying around a watermelon under your shirt. I have to say you really haven't lived until you've trimmed eight little hooves at nearly 35 weeks pregnant. At least it's done and I won't have to to it again until after this baby is here.

Wesley and I have been spending more and more time in the basement lately. I've been cleaning and organizing all the toys down there so that it can officially become a playroom. I'm hoping this will help after his little sister arrives and I'm stuck on a couch breastfeeding all the time. I've been setting up bookcases and shifting old books down there along with other toys that have been in storage so that they are "new" again to him. I think it's working since he constantly wants to go down there to play. The GeoTrax are down there as well and he's really becoming interested in playing with them (finally). He'll line all the engines and controllers up and count them repeatedly. He also seems to have finally become somewhat interested in a movie. He's never had the attention span needed to watch a movie but lately he's been asking for the fishy movie (Finding Nemo), so I'll get it playing while we're down there and he'll stop to watch it every so often. It's a welcome change from the furry red monster.

Sean has been busy putting up an outdoor antennae so that we might get some decent TV stations. We've been having some problems getting in basic television stations lately so Sean went up and removed the giant antennae from the attic so that it could be mounted on the roof. We still don't watch enough TV to justify switching back to cable but it would be nice to be able to watch the news from time to time, and maybe a little football once football season starts.

That's about all that's happening around here. Hope you all had a nice weekend!

Attention Span

I present "The Attention Span of a Two Year Old" through pictures......


......going.....

......going.....

......gone.....

The snot blower and the dresser.

I'm happy to report that Wesley is feeling better. He's on his last day of antibiotics, ten days sure was a long time. His cheek is all healed up and he's almost over his cold. The snot just won't go away. I keep thinking "THIS will be the last day with snot" but nope it just keeps coming. It is becoming less and less each day though so here's hoping it will be gone by this weekend. We are on our second week without play dates with Jessica and her kids and it sure does make for a long couple of weeks. We don't want to infect her kids though so we are stuck here in the house for the remainder of the week. At least he's keeping himself busy vacuuming and chewing on dinosaurs.



The baby dresser project is finally finished! It really looks great, Sean did such a nice job refinishing it and it will look beautiful in whatever bedroom she ends up in. But for now it will look great in our bedroom when it comes in from the shop. Here are a few before and after pictures:

My pretty sad looking $10 garage sale dresser ready to be sanded down, the handles have already been removed.


Wesley "helping" out.


A whole lot of sanding, priming and painting later....it's finished.


This dresser should see a whole lot of use over the rest of its life.

Mother of the Year

I definitely deserve the Mother of the Year award today. After Wesley's nap we decided to walk up and get the mail. We have a rather long drive way and Wesley enjoys the walk as does Chance, our little terrier, so he came with us on a leash. We get to the top of the driveway and get the mail along with a package that was in the mailbox. About this time I see a german shepherd trotting down the road coming towards us. It sees us and I knew it would get to us soon. Now mind you this wasn't some big, scary looking german shepherd but rather a large gangly dog....kind of like a big puppy. I immediately picked up Chance because he's a terrier and thinks he's 150 pounds of pure intimidation. He'll go after any dog no matter the size. So I have Chance in one arm and the mail/package in the other. A normal Mother would have probably picked up her two year old and high tailed it for the house but no, not me. My first instinct is to save the dog. Of course this big puppy comes barreling up to us, so excited to see new people. Chance is going freakin nuts in my arms. Then the big puppy/german shepherd sees Wesley and runs over and licks him and knocks him over into the gravel. So now I have Wesley screaming on the ground, Chance trying to rip apart the strange dog from my right arm and oddly I still have the mail/package in my other arm. Finally some shred of Motherly instinct kicks in and I throw the mail down, grab Wesley (minus a shoe), shift Chance into a football hold and waddle my way back down the driveway. Luckily when it was all said and done, no one was hurt and poor Wesley doesn't seem any worse for wear. I suppose growing up with all these dogs in the house the poor kid is used to being bowled over from time to time. I just find it strange that my first instinct was to save the dog and not protect my child. What's wrong with me?

Problem solving at its finest

Every year about this time I do the hay dance. This consists of me fretting over whether the bales in the shop will last till the new hay is cut and brought in. With no word on when cutting is happening and four measly little bales of prairie hay left I decided to go get hay yesterday. I found a farmer selling large round bales and I hopped into the truck and ventured out to pick one up. Now if you aren't familiar with round bales of hay I will give you a little lesson (whether you want to know or not). Round bales come in different sizes. In the past when I've needed extra hay I usually bought from a man who baled smaller round bales, normally in the 600-800 pound range. One of these fit nicely in the back of the truck and rolled easily out of it when I returned home. With this in mind you'll understand my shock at what I found at the farmers place yesterday. Apparently they make bigger round bales too. It was about the size of a small mobile home and when asked how large it was the farmer said about 1200 pounds. He also made sure to inform me that I'd need a couple of strong men to get it out of the back of the truck. He also said "You don't need to be helping since you're pregnant". Yeah he really said that. I'm pretty sure I remember reading that in the pregnancy books "....at 8 months pregnant it is best to stay away from hard manual labor such as moving 1200 pounds bales of hay....."

Anyways, I get it home finally. I do believe it was the biggest load my poor truck has ever held (or ever should hold) in it's eleven years. I felt bad and kept reassuring the truck we would be home soon and the behemoth that was in its bed would be out. I failed to realize that when the farmer said I'd need two strong men, I'd actually need two strong men. I kinda thought my one really strong man would be enough.

So I back up to the horse pen, the horses in the mean time are eying this thing like they died and went to heaven. Sean comes out and we stand around looking at it trying to figure out how to move it. Even though it looks like it should roll (it's not called a round bale for nothing folks) it doesn't.



First Sean decides to do the easiest looking approach of climbing behind the cab of the truck and pushing really hard.



After not budging it an inch he reconsiders and grabs a hay hook. Then he tries the second approach. This approach consists of him hooking it high and trying to use his man strength to pull it out. This approach made me wonder about my husbands sanity since it would easily roll out and squish him like a pancake. Seriously it would kill him if it rolled on him.



The third approach, although I didn't get a picture, was entertaining at least. It consisted of backing the truck up really fast and slamming on the brakes thus causing the bale to roll out. In theory this could have worked if we were on a hard surface, not grass. The lush grass made the truck slide every time the brakes were applied. Also, it's probably good this one didn't work as it could have been disastrous if it did work. Just think of a 1200 pound rolling object, it could have taken out part of the shop or fencing if it got going in the wrong direction.
At this point I decided to go inside and make dinner, I made sure to look out the window every few minutes to make sure it hadn't squished my husband. Sean tried several more ideas including a floor jack on its side, a lever made from a big deck board and even considered jacking up the front of the truck but decided against that one. In the end all the pulling and pushing caused it to move enough to allow Sean to wedge his body behind the cab of the truck and he was able to roll the giant thing out after a whole lot of grunting and sweating and a possible hernia.



Needless to say there will be no more giant bales of hay brought home unless we magically acquire a skid steer or large tractor or become friends with several large burly men.

33 Weeks

1. I can officially say I'm having a baby next month....freaky!

2. Seven weeks to go and it feels like an eternity. Seven more weeks of side sleeping. Seven more weeks of being unable to get up off the ground when playing with Wesley. I've actually just stayed on the ground if I knew Sean was going to be home soon so he could help me get up. It's sad.

3. Had my appointment today. Everything looks good, she has a strong heartbeat of 140 bpm. I've been having some cramping the last two weeks which she reassured me is normal, more so in a second pregnancy. Also I'm feeling a lot of pressure down there which she also said was normal. I get my cervix checked at the next appointment to see if there is any progress...here's hoping!

4. Sean has been refinishing the baby dresser this week after work and it really looks awesome! When it's done I'll post some pictures. I hope to have it done and in the house next week so I can start washing and folding baby clothes. The nesting instinct is growing stronger and stronger by the week. Soon I'll be scrubbing baseboards.

5. The utter exhaustion is still here and pops it's ugly head in around 3pm every day. I'm in the process of changing my diet so that I get more protein to try and keep my blood sugars even throughout the day. Doctor said this is normal in the last trimester, especially with a 2 year old keeping me busy.

6. My appetite is gone. I take that back, I'm still hungry for breakfast but not much else throughout the day. I'm hoping the weight gain levels off for the next few weeks.

7. I've been having fun buying the cutest things off of eBay for this little lady. Things that I never needed to buy for Wesley such as a car seat cover since she'll be a fall and winter infant.

8. She weighs between 4.5 and 5 pounds right now. From now on out it's just packing on that adorable baby chub. Grow baby girl grow!

Our Pest Problem

We have a problem. For some reason the mice have decided to move indoors during the summer instead of during the winter this year. It makes no sense to me with the beautiful weather we're having and the ample supply of food outdoors. But no, they are making themselves at home right here in my home. Last week I purchased some traps and set out four of them in the kitchen and two in the basement. We just caught our third mouse in a week. I don't understand it.

The sad part here is that the mice aren't the only pest problem we're having. I've mentioned here that we have cockatiels. Six of them in a large aviary like bird cage. I got a large bag of cockatiel seed last fall with the hopes of it lasting longer than the small bags I purchase every other week. What I failed to understand is that when seed doesn't get eaten quickly, moths take over. I've researched it and found that most seed has larvae in it when it's purchased and it's up to you to use it quickly. Well needless to say I couldn't use a large 50 pound bag of seed quickly enough and the moths hatched. They took over the bird room upstairs. They are Indian Meal Moths. Moths that feed on seed, some people find them in their pantries where flour and other such food is kept. Luckily they seem contained in the bird room, we rarely find them out in the rest of the house. So for the past two months now I go upstairs right before Wesley's bath and use the ShopVac to suck up as many moths as I can see. In the beginning I was sucking up around 150-200 moths a night. Yeah a night! They were reproducing faster than I could suck them up. The thought occurred to us to hire an exterminator but the thought of someone spraying chemicals all over a house that contains a two year old and a newborn kind of freaked me out. So I trudge up there nightly and suck away. I'm happy to report that I've officially broken their reproduction cycle and am only sucking up about 15-20 every other night now. I've also given that room a major cleaning to find all of their little nesting sites. I've also become better at cleaning up after the birds. If you've ever owned birds you know how messy they are, spreading seed and feathers all over the place. Anyways, that is our current pest problem. Luckily I believe both the mice and the moths are gone or almost gone and we can get on with our lives.

Observation

How do you know you are a Mom to a two year old little boy?

There are Hot Wheels in your aquarium.

Weekend Roadtrip

Chillin with the Grandparents

We got back yesterday from a really pleasant weekend visiting Sean's side of the family. I had mentioned in a previous post that the family farm was sold so we all headed out there Friday. The girls hung around and watched all the kids while the men folk went out and picked up the last of the treasures from the farm. It was entertaining watching Wesley play with his cousins whom are all the same age. There were three two year olds running around along with an adorable 8 month old. Wesley was the only boy and I think he was showing off a tad bit for the ladies. He was running wildly through the house and tripped and face planted into a little wooden step stool. The end result was we believe he bit the inside of his cheek and somehow got a small puncture wound where his lips crease in the corner. The thing just bled and bled and bled. And he just wailed and wailed and wailed. The next day his cheek was inflamed and by this morning it looked like he had a big wad of bubblegum in his cheek. I took him to the doctor this morning since he's been very whiny and won't sleep very well the previous nights. The only doctor we could get in to see this morning was our previous Doctor, Dr. TalkingHead. I was a little worried about seeing him since we transferred to a new, much more awesome doctor. My worries were unfounded as I think he didn't even remember who we were. He wheeled his little stool over to Wesley and put a gloved finger into Wesley's mouth and pushed against the inside of his cheek and out came a string of yellow puss. It was kind of like squeezing toothpaste out of the container. Pretty gross. They did a culture on the puss and started the poor kid on his very first ever round of antibiotics. I got a little internal chuckle when the doctor stuck his finger back in his mouth to get the puss for the culture, Wesley bit the heck out of him. The doctor yelled "OUCH". He pulled his hand out and removed his glove to find a perfect little crescent moon of teeth marks on his finger. He he he....score one for Wesley. To add insult to injury the kid caught whatever his little cousin Serenity had and now is blowing snot balls everywhere. Whenever he looks like he's about to sneeze I have to duck and cover because snot flies all over. Poor little puss filled, snot blowing kid.

Besides the sick kid we really did have a fun time though. Wesley loved seeing his Noni Randi and Papa Rich. Just today I was walking him into the doctors office and he looked up at me and said "Go see Noni Randi?". It's a good thing we'll see them around the time of the birth as I think the kid is already going into withdrawal.

The gang, minus Nate and John who had just left


Yep, still terrified of pools, apparently all pools not just our own.


Playgrounds and Noni's rule!


Nate, Randi, Sasha and John in the shade


Loving Granny's sunglasses