I'm very proud of myself for posting within a week of my last post. Where did I find the time, you ask? After spending the entire day with the kids (and cleaning the house since we have a playdate tomorrow with someone who has never seen the house), making them dinner, getting annoyed at them for not eating dinner, giving them their baths, getting them dressed, doing all the dishes, making snacks, brushing teeth, reading stories, and spending well over an hour dealing with Roanen, who got ridiculously hysterical after I didn't hold his hand properly, I plunked myself down in front of the computer just to share all my uninteresting news with you. And where's Russ? He didn't even come home tonight, but went straight to the Shawville fair tractor pull where he's doing all his favourite tractor-y things. He'll be home sometime after midnight. Must be nice. So enough bitching, here's the dirt.
The kids stayed in Ottawa after we visited friends on Sunday and didn't come home until Tuesday night (and they were asleep when they got here so it didn't start counting until Wednesday morning. Being a nasty pregnant bad mommy I didn't miss them much, particularly when Josey spent a five minute phone conversation with me on Monday morning repeating "I don't love you!" over and over again. I got lots of sleep on the first day, sleeping in until 10 and having a nap in the afternoon. I got not much tidying or cleaning done and I don't care. The second day I couldn't even keep myself in bed until 6:30 and spent another looong day doing nothing.
Tuesday afternoon I had my 36 (37? 37.5?) week appointment where I was told that the baby is really low (but not engaged yet) and it doesn't look like I'll "hold onto it much longer". Oh darn. My appointment was at 4, and since I figured that by that point in the day the doctor would be way behind schedule, I warned Russ that I might not be home when he got there at 5:40. I set out all the ingredients to make dinner on the counter, hoping that I'd be right and maybe, just maybe, Russ would come in, see that I wasn't there and make dinner. Ha! As luck would have it, I got out of the office at 5:15, with just enough time to drive home and start dinner. So what did I do? I sat in the car in the parking lot and knit until 5:40, evil woman that I am. When I got home Russ was in the kitchen making dinner. Hadn't checked on the chickens, hadn't had a shower, just saw that I wasn't there and started chopping away, even following a recipe which is apparently one of his most hated things to do. Sweet man. Now don't tell him how I tricked him into doing it. That night he even made me a homemade iced cappuccino, which whacked me out on caffeine at 10:30 that night and kept me from sleeping.
Anyway, now I'm using the "baby could come anytime" line and today I started taking my evening primrose oil capsules which are supposed to soften your cervix. Not that my cervix needs any help in that department since judging from my last labour it dilates and effaces a lot without me even being aware of it. The nursery is totally set up and I even have my hospital bag packed. So send some labour vibes my way.
*Knock On Wood Again*
Roanen has slept through the last 4 out of 6 nights, and the 2 nights he woke up he went back to sleep really easily. I thought that maybe he'd forgetten that he likes screaming, but he did enough of it today and tonight that I changed my mind.
Josey's behaviour has been pretty good since he got back from Grammie and Grampa's. I started teaching him how to write numbers yesterday and he really surprised me with how fast he picked it up. Granted we only practiced 1 and 2, but he did a really good job. He can now count objects and write the number beside them. Genius. Today we tried out the number 3 and he couldn't write it properly, frustrating both of us and causing a boycott of number writing for the rest of the day. We'll try again tomorrow.
Next post to come after the baby is born. Yeah, right.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Yet Another Boring Post
See? I can't even come up with a decent title.
Yes, I know I've been a blog slacker. Between guilt about blogging when the kids are awake, utter exhaustion when they're not, things that NEED to be done (but still don't get done thanks to the aforementioned exhaustion) and the fact that my....computer.....is.....slower.....than......this, I haven't even been turning on the computer, let alone posting blogs, reading blogs or entering blogging contests. The only thing motivating me to do this now is the fact that the computer and dial-up seems to be fastest on Sunday mornings (and I have a basket of to-be-folded laundry next to me to take care of while each website sloooowly appears). Oh, and I was worried that I've posted so little that my next post was going to be about the birth of the baby and that would have been weird. So here's the latest:
I'm up to prenatal appointments every week now since they say I'm at 35 1/2 weeks (at least 36 1/2 according to me) now. Last Tuesday I had gained 4 lbs in 2 weeks (apparently there is no rhyme or reason to my weight gain) and the baby's head is now really low, but not yet engaged. The doctor said all that means is that he could pretty much guarantee that I wasn't going to have the baby before Thursday. I have been *absolutely miserable* in the past 2 weeks due to the combination of not being able to move quickly or bend, painful contractions, something that feels like bad gas pain in my extreme low abdomen (which has actually thankfully subsided since I made an effort to eat regularly), pressure in my tailbone area, severe hip and sacrum pain, and what I believe to be cervical dilation that feels like someone is sticking big needles in unmentionable places. I've also started (ok, continued) really disliking feeling the baby move since it has no room left and stretches out causing more contractions and pain. I seriously can't understand people who enjoy pregnancy, but unfortunately if I want 4 kids I'm going to have to go through it one more time. Not anytime soon though.
I'm guessing (I don't remember if I've posted this before and am too lazy to check) that I'll have the baby by the 9th. I have a baby pool going and there are some extremely pessimistic people out there who are not trusting my motherly instincts. But they'd better not be right.
We finally put the crib together last night because I started panicking about not having anything done. The clothes are sorted and I have a couple of packs of newborn diapers (not that I bought them), but otherwise the room is a disaster and in that sense I'm not even remotely ready to have this baby. I'm sort of hoping that I'll have it soon and the magical fairies will show up while I'm at the hospital and clean my house and get everything ready (reading my mind about what I actually want done since I'm anal about how it SHOULD be done...). Fortunately when I was feeling really good and Martha Stewart-y a couple of weeks ago I managed to cook and freeze 20 main meals and about 15 side dishes to help me out with dinners post-baby. I'd still like to make more, but just don't have the energy or motivation for it. I'll wait for that magical day before the baby's born when I feel really great and pain-free and nest my way into household organization.
*Knock On Wood* Roanen slept right through the night last night and only woke up once the night before. Lately, though, he's been waking up at least twice and getting hysterical again for no reason. He's also been hard to put down, getting himself tangled in the sheet on purpose and screaming "BANK-ET" repeatedly until we straighten it, then repeating this several times. Oh, and now he likes me to hold his hand while he falls asleep, but it has to be JUST RIGHT, and JUST RIGHT is never how I do it and he freaks. When he gets psychotic we've taken to taking him right out of bed and bringing him into the baby's room to sit on the couch until he calms down and says he wants to go back to bed. After doing this about 3 or 4 times in a row when he won't calm down he usually settles, but that doesn't necessarily mean he won't wake up again during the night. He's still playing really well on his own during the day, but has zero patience for anything going remotely wrong and gets frustrated easily when things don't go exactly as he wants them to.
Josey had a period of two days where he was an angel child. He was helpful, obedient, and relatively calm. It was heaven. Then the devil re-emerged and he's been extra bad for about a week and a half now. I don't know if he's upset that I can't do much and sit around a lot, or just taking advantage of the fact that I can't move quickly, but it's driving us crazy. His normal time-outs are 3 minutes long and I don't thing he's had one shorter than 7 minutes in all this time because they get extended when he refuses to sit down for them and runs around, making me chase him (no, don't picture it - not a pretty sight). He also likes to copy anything bad that Roanen does because bad attention is better than no attention, right? I'm wondering how he's going to react when the baby's born, and thinking that it could really go either way. At any rate, when I can move more I'll (hopefully) be able to deal better.
So that's it for now. I'm off to make junky treats with Josey to make up for ignoring him while I blog.
Yes, I know I've been a blog slacker. Between guilt about blogging when the kids are awake, utter exhaustion when they're not, things that NEED to be done (but still don't get done thanks to the aforementioned exhaustion) and the fact that my....computer.....is.....slower.....than......this, I haven't even been turning on the computer, let alone posting blogs, reading blogs or entering blogging contests. The only thing motivating me to do this now is the fact that the computer and dial-up seems to be fastest on Sunday mornings (and I have a basket of to-be-folded laundry next to me to take care of while each website sloooowly appears). Oh, and I was worried that I've posted so little that my next post was going to be about the birth of the baby and that would have been weird. So here's the latest:
I'm up to prenatal appointments every week now since they say I'm at 35 1/2 weeks (at least 36 1/2 according to me) now. Last Tuesday I had gained 4 lbs in 2 weeks (apparently there is no rhyme or reason to my weight gain) and the baby's head is now really low, but not yet engaged. The doctor said all that means is that he could pretty much guarantee that I wasn't going to have the baby before Thursday. I have been *absolutely miserable* in the past 2 weeks due to the combination of not being able to move quickly or bend, painful contractions, something that feels like bad gas pain in my extreme low abdomen (which has actually thankfully subsided since I made an effort to eat regularly), pressure in my tailbone area, severe hip and sacrum pain, and what I believe to be cervical dilation that feels like someone is sticking big needles in unmentionable places. I've also started (ok, continued) really disliking feeling the baby move since it has no room left and stretches out causing more contractions and pain. I seriously can't understand people who enjoy pregnancy, but unfortunately if I want 4 kids I'm going to have to go through it one more time. Not anytime soon though.
I'm guessing (I don't remember if I've posted this before and am too lazy to check) that I'll have the baby by the 9th. I have a baby pool going and there are some extremely pessimistic people out there who are not trusting my motherly instincts. But they'd better not be right.
We finally put the crib together last night because I started panicking about not having anything done. The clothes are sorted and I have a couple of packs of newborn diapers (not that I bought them), but otherwise the room is a disaster and in that sense I'm not even remotely ready to have this baby. I'm sort of hoping that I'll have it soon and the magical fairies will show up while I'm at the hospital and clean my house and get everything ready (reading my mind about what I actually want done since I'm anal about how it SHOULD be done...). Fortunately when I was feeling really good and Martha Stewart-y a couple of weeks ago I managed to cook and freeze 20 main meals and about 15 side dishes to help me out with dinners post-baby. I'd still like to make more, but just don't have the energy or motivation for it. I'll wait for that magical day before the baby's born when I feel really great and pain-free and nest my way into household organization.
*Knock On Wood* Roanen slept right through the night last night and only woke up once the night before. Lately, though, he's been waking up at least twice and getting hysterical again for no reason. He's also been hard to put down, getting himself tangled in the sheet on purpose and screaming "BANK-ET" repeatedly until we straighten it, then repeating this several times. Oh, and now he likes me to hold his hand while he falls asleep, but it has to be JUST RIGHT, and JUST RIGHT is never how I do it and he freaks. When he gets psychotic we've taken to taking him right out of bed and bringing him into the baby's room to sit on the couch until he calms down and says he wants to go back to bed. After doing this about 3 or 4 times in a row when he won't calm down he usually settles, but that doesn't necessarily mean he won't wake up again during the night. He's still playing really well on his own during the day, but has zero patience for anything going remotely wrong and gets frustrated easily when things don't go exactly as he wants them to.
Josey had a period of two days where he was an angel child. He was helpful, obedient, and relatively calm. It was heaven. Then the devil re-emerged and he's been extra bad for about a week and a half now. I don't know if he's upset that I can't do much and sit around a lot, or just taking advantage of the fact that I can't move quickly, but it's driving us crazy. His normal time-outs are 3 minutes long and I don't thing he's had one shorter than 7 minutes in all this time because they get extended when he refuses to sit down for them and runs around, making me chase him (no, don't picture it - not a pretty sight). He also likes to copy anything bad that Roanen does because bad attention is better than no attention, right? I'm wondering how he's going to react when the baby's born, and thinking that it could really go either way. At any rate, when I can move more I'll (hopefully) be able to deal better.
So that's it for now. I'm off to make junky treats with Josey to make up for ignoring him while I blog.
Monday, August 20, 2007
The Most Boring 100th Post Ever
I've been putting off writing my 100th post because I really feel like it should be something extraordinarily special. Perhaps an extremely amusing story? Or, even more fitting, my 100 Things About Me post (which I wasn't actually tagged to do, but sometimes I need to talk about me too). Unfortunately I have no really funny stories, and zero time to think about 100 things, let alone type them all out. So it's a regular old this-is-what-has-been-happening-lately post that will bore my readers. All 4 of you.
2 Tuesdays ago (yes I'm way behind) I had a prenatal appointment. They're getting closer together so it had only been 3 weeks since my previous appointment. At the same time, Roanen was due for his 18 month shots so we all went in together, with Josey panicking the whole time because he has needle issues, whether it's him getting them or not.
Roanen immediately freaked out because I LEFT HIM IN THE EXAM ROOM (about 3 feet away) while I was getting weighed. He ran out and stuck himself onto my leg, interfering with the weighing process, so I ended up having to weigh both of us at the same time, then I put him on a chair in the exam room, surrounded by an obstacle course of toys and chairs then ran back to the scale. All that to find out that A) despite forcing myself to eat all meals, some snacks, and fill up on meal replacement drinks I had only gained half a pound in three weeks and even better B) Roanen has actually lost a pound in the last 3 months. This is the kid that eats more than I do some days. I wasn't as concerned about my weight, since the doctor didn't seem to have a problem with it and I lost a pound around this stage in my pregnancy with Josey as well. As for Roanen, I was a bit worried because he does eat a lot and a pound is a lot when you only weigh 24 pounds to start. Granted, he is really active and he is growing height-wise (evidently 4 inches since Christmas), but it kicked the Italian mother genes in me into high gear and I've been watching everything that he eats to make sure he's getting enough calories. Of course Russ, who was always super-proud of how big Roanen was since he gave up on Josey (who is apparently going to be a midget despite only being in the 40th percentile for everything) was really bummed out. There is no hope for our tiny children. Note that we are average-sized people from families of about 25% average-sized people and 75% short people (including an aunt on Russ' side who is actually short enough to be classified as a little person). But no, our children should have been the giants and they're not so we'll just have to hope this next baby isn't also a dwarf.
Story requested by Grammie:
I have been asking Josey if he's interested in seeing me give birth to this baby, provided the labour isn't too long and not in the middle of the night. He has seen births on TV and gets really excited about seeing the baby come out, so he has said that he would probably like it. The last time I asked, he got very pensive and asked me where the baby was going to come out. Being one to give honest answers to my child (at least some of the time and in certain situations), I told him that babies come out of mommies vaginas. He nodded understandingly, but then asked "But how are they going to put that vagina back together?" Without getting into details about TEARING and BLEEDING and NEEDLES and STITCHES and SCAR TISSUE, I took out my hair elastic and showed him how it's a certain size, but stretches WAY bigger to fit over this coffee mug then goes back to its original size (ha). Don't know if it really sunk in, but he did want to play with my hair elastic after that. And he now thinks our new baby is going to be a coffee mug.
2 Tuesdays ago (yes I'm way behind) I had a prenatal appointment. They're getting closer together so it had only been 3 weeks since my previous appointment. At the same time, Roanen was due for his 18 month shots so we all went in together, with Josey panicking the whole time because he has needle issues, whether it's him getting them or not.
Roanen immediately freaked out because I LEFT HIM IN THE EXAM ROOM (about 3 feet away) while I was getting weighed. He ran out and stuck himself onto my leg, interfering with the weighing process, so I ended up having to weigh both of us at the same time, then I put him on a chair in the exam room, surrounded by an obstacle course of toys and chairs then ran back to the scale. All that to find out that A) despite forcing myself to eat all meals, some snacks, and fill up on meal replacement drinks I had only gained half a pound in three weeks and even better B) Roanen has actually lost a pound in the last 3 months. This is the kid that eats more than I do some days. I wasn't as concerned about my weight, since the doctor didn't seem to have a problem with it and I lost a pound around this stage in my pregnancy with Josey as well. As for Roanen, I was a bit worried because he does eat a lot and a pound is a lot when you only weigh 24 pounds to start. Granted, he is really active and he is growing height-wise (evidently 4 inches since Christmas), but it kicked the Italian mother genes in me into high gear and I've been watching everything that he eats to make sure he's getting enough calories. Of course Russ, who was always super-proud of how big Roanen was since he gave up on Josey (who is apparently going to be a midget despite only being in the 40th percentile for everything) was really bummed out. There is no hope for our tiny children. Note that we are average-sized people from families of about 25% average-sized people and 75% short people (including an aunt on Russ' side who is actually short enough to be classified as a little person). But no, our children should have been the giants and they're not so we'll just have to hope this next baby isn't also a dwarf.
Story requested by Grammie:
I have been asking Josey if he's interested in seeing me give birth to this baby, provided the labour isn't too long and not in the middle of the night. He has seen births on TV and gets really excited about seeing the baby come out, so he has said that he would probably like it. The last time I asked, he got very pensive and asked me where the baby was going to come out. Being one to give honest answers to my child (at least some of the time and in certain situations), I told him that babies come out of mommies vaginas. He nodded understandingly, but then asked "But how are they going to put that vagina back together?" Without getting into details about TEARING and BLEEDING and NEEDLES and STITCHES and SCAR TISSUE, I took out my hair elastic and showed him how it's a certain size, but stretches WAY bigger to fit over this coffee mug then goes back to its original size (ha). Don't know if it really sunk in, but he did want to play with my hair elastic after that. And he now thinks our new baby is going to be a coffee mug.
Monday, August 13, 2007
Sweet, Sweet Boy Part 2
Josey is going to be a fabulous big brother to the new baby. He's very excited about it coming, but is getting tired of waiting SO LONG for it. So as a temporary substitution, he has pulled out his baby: a soft-bodied, plastic-headed unattractive doll that makes weird noises when you squeeze its belly or hand that Grammie got for him when Roanen was born. The other day between bath and snack he was taking care of his baby. He put on the baby's shirt. He decided that the baby's pants needed to be washed, so he put them in the laundry. He carried the baby around. He nursed the baby. He read the baby some stories. He shared his snack with the baby. He tucked the baby into bed. He was very gentle and sweet. The next morning I was in the kitchen when I heard him walk down a few stairs, then his little voice said "I drop it?" and I turned to see this:
Yes, Sweetie, sometimes I want to do that to you guys too.
Yes, Sweetie, sometimes I want to do that to you guys too.
Thursday, August 09, 2007
Sweet, Sweet Boy
"Mmmm Mommy, this breakfast is really good! Make it again....or I'll THROW YOU OUT!"
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