At least that's done

The crib has been put together and most of Joseph's stuff has been moved out of the toy room. We're going to have to get a new crib matress though so add that to the list of 8 million things we need to do before the baby comes. Ack! We're running out of time!

I am woman, hear me roar

We spent the past couple days at Grandpa Jim's cabin on the lake and it changed me. I am now a powerfu master and commander of all the creatures of the earth. That's right, I caught a fish. Several actually. I even caught a walleye but it got away. I baited my own hook and everything. I feel so alive!

I also feel sunburnt. We all got a little crispy with Jesse getting it the worst. Joseph was mostly ok because I pretty much coated him in an inch thick layer of sunscreen each time he went outside.

All in all we had a fun time. We managed to forget Joseph's suitcase at home and he had to to without all his bedtime books and stuffed animals. He cried for a little while but thankfully he was so tired that was able to fall asleep without much trouble anyway.

The best part of the whole weekend was when we fried up the fish we had caught and Joseph ate three pieces. He just sat down at the table and started eating like it was no big deal. No complaints, no arguments, no crying, just eating. We were pretty amazed. I think he was excited to eat the fish that he had caught. (He also helped to cook it by crushing up the crackers.)

Now I have to go because I've spent enough time poking around and I need to get some actual work done. We're putting the crib together today and I need to move some stuff around in the baby's room/Joseph's toy room first. I'm tempted to just sit on the couch for an hour or four first though.

Too cute

For the past half hour Joseph has been sitting on the couch with his DoodlerPro drawing and erasing and redrawing what he calls "maps". He wants to draw a map showing how to get from our house to Disney World. He told me he wants to give it to the "flighter" when he flies to Disney World. I think he means the pilot.

Whoops

Joseph and Jesse were in the backyard tonight playing football and they had a little collision. I guess they knocked heads while both going for the ball. To hear Joseph tell it though Jesse tackled him "in the eye". He's (Joseph) got a little bit of a shiner developing on his left eye now. Jesse's solution was to put a little tub of frozen sweet and sour sauce on it. I don't know, don't ask.

Thoughts

Joseph is such a special person. Of course he's also 5 and can drive me crazy like nobody's business but for the most part he's really an amazing little guy. When I think about how many things had to happen for him to come into our lives I feel beyond lucky that Jesse and I are blessed enough to be his parents. I don't know what we did to deserve it but I really do think that it was meant to be. He was supposed to be our son. I really believe that.

Anyone who knows Joseph knows what a great kid he is. He's funny ans sweet and smart and loving. But he's also somehting else that I can't find a word for. He can be so deep sometimes. When he's not being silly and hyper he can be so sensitive and ...... I don't know the word, connected maybe. He's an old soul, there's no doubt about that.

I think Joseph has a big purpose in this life. I think he has such a big impact on the lives that he touches and I think that will just increase as he gets older. There is something big in store for this kid, I just know it.

I know this all sounds sappy but I do have a point. As I get ready for our second baby I have to admit that I do occasionaly find myself wondering "How am I ever going to love this baby as much as I love Joseph? Is it even possible?". I know that's silly but there's so many unique things about Joseph that I find myself thinking things like "He's the best kid there ever was, no one will ever be able to compare to him!"

Now, having said that, there are a few things that I am looking forward to that I did't get to experiance with Joseph. I'm looking forward to looking at the baby and being able to see that she has my nose or Jesse's eyes. Everyone says Joseph looks like Jesse but I am looking forward to seeing who this new baby will look like.

I'm also looking forward to holding her for the first time and knowing that she's "mine". Of course when you care for a baby like we did for Joseph you can't help but love them but part of you has to hold back. We always thought Joseph could be leaving us any day. Several times we were told that he would be leaving us in a few weeks or a month or even a couple of days. (I once had some of his stuff packed up before they changed the plans again.) So even though we loved him we spent so much of his very, very early life kind of loving him ...... differently than we will with this new baby. It makes me sad when I think about it but then I cheer myself up by giving him a little extra loving to make up for it now. So I'm looking forward to having this baby be "mine" right away.

Anyway, those are my deep, rambling thoughts of the day.

Cripes

I can't fall asleep! I'm tired but the longer I lay there the more restless I get. I start thinking about stupid things and I can't just relax. I thought getting up and moving around for a little bit might help.

The baby is kicking like a mamma-jamma.

At last

I haven't had much to say in the past few days because I've been in too much pain most of the time lately to even think about posting. I had this incredible pain under my left, lower ribs that mad eit hard for me to concentrate on much of anything.

I had my regular check up yesterday and my doctor says it's most likely a certain kind of stomach irritation that pregnant women get (it has a name and everything but I can't remember it). It's similar to an ulcer but it will go away once I've had the baby. Until then she put me on perscription heartbur medication and that already seems to be helping.

In other news I had a 3 hour blood sugar test done and the results of that came back normal. I have gained a few more pounds but I'm still in negative numbers. (Not for long though probably.) My uterus was measuring a little under average for how far along I am at my last appointment but this time it's all caught up. That's funny to me because in the last week or so I've felt like I've really started to show a lot more. When the doctor was trying to listen to the baby's heartbeat she was having a hard time because she (the baby) was moving all over the place and kicking.

So, everything looks good with the baby and I'm feeling a lot better so I really have no complaints. What I do have is a theory. And here it is: It is impossible to hear the song "I Will Survive" when you're in your car and not get down at least just a little bit. Even if you're driving through a road construction area.

Sweeeeet!

Two good things to report today!

First: Yesterday Jesse came home with a baby present that a woman on his co-ed softball team had given us. She crocheted a very cute little pink baby blanket. It was such a sweet thing of her to do I thought.

Second: A new child psychologist started at the place where Joseph gets PT and OT. His food therapist is going to talk to his doctor to get him a referal to see her. Since she's new and still accepting patients we probably won't have any trouble getting in to see her. This gives us something to work with while we are waiting to get into the neurobehaviorlist. (Joseph needs to start seeing people who's titles I can spell correctly.)

So things are good. Also good is the fact that in about 10 minutes an 8 month old baby will be coming over to our house to be babysat for 4 hours. Joseph is so excited that he can hardly stand it. This morning he asked me if he could watch tv after the baby left. He said "I know the rules of babies and I know that babies don't like to watch tv so if you want to watch a show you have to wait till the baby leaves. I know that because I babysat Kiona lots of times so I'm an expert." He's so cute.

My head looks like a potato

I can't stop eating smoked almonds (despite the effect they have on me) and shredded wheat. They are the only two things I want right now. I eat bowl after bowl of shredded wheat and snack on almonds between that. I wonder what my body is telling me.

The baby likes baths. Whenever I take one she bounces all over the place. Of course, that might just mean that my bath water is too hot and she's to kick me so that I'll stop hard-boiling her but I like to think that she likes it. Too bad that our tub is so small that only about 1/7 of my tummy is underwater when I take a bath.

Today was "Bring your screaming baby to therapy day" at physical therapy. Joseph was having trouble even doing his work because there were 4 kids all under the age of 2 screaming their little hearts out. Joseph's therapist finally had to get him some headphones so that he could listen to music as he did his work. Even so it was very hard for him to concentrate and at one point he just threw his pencil down and said "I can't stand this screaming anymore! I can't even draw my picture! Look! My head looks like a potato and I can't figure out how to draw a tu-tu!" That tells you how bad things really were.

For Ben

Ben,
The guys that I thought were so un-funny were two other guys that do stuff for Best Week Ever. The guys I was talking about are both named Rob and one of them is on Saturday Night Live now. The Cheap Seats guys crack me up to no end.

Th Louie Andrerson batting cage I was talking about may not have been in Disney World. Maybe it was at the Hall of Fame Museum or something. You said that you went in and pitched (or batted or something) and this voice would tell you how you did. You thought it sounded like Louie Anderson but Dad had no idea who that was. Is any of this ringing a bell?

Third trimester

It's official, I'm in my third trimester now. The baby weighs about 2 pounds now. At least that what the books say. I think the baby weighs about 12 pounds. Lately my stomach has just felt HUGE! and until the baby is old enough to defend herself I'm going to blame it on her. Taking the blame is the least she can do given the fact that I've been letting her use my bladder as a trampoline for the past week or so.

The weekend

Looks like the heatwave is going to be breaking. I think Jesse and I can take credit for that because we finally broke down and bought a second air conditioner. I'm sitting in here in air conditioned splendor and I can't even tell you how nice it feels. It's so wonderful to be sitting downstairs and not dripping sweat.

I am in serious pain today. My muscle is aching so bad and I can't figure out why. I haven't done anything that would have bothered it but man oh man am I ever sore. I'm also having a lot of pain under my ribs and I just read that can be caused by the baby being in breech position.

I had a serious craving for smoked almonds on Friday and Jesse went out to the store to get some. I've been snacking away all weekend. Too bad that I'm mildly allergic to the skin on nuts. The roof of my mouth itches and my tounge feels like it weighs 8 pounds but it's worth it. Those are the nest damn almonds that have ever existed in the history of the world.

Finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince today. (See below.) Maybe I would have enjoyed it more it I hadn't been so hot and crabby. Maybe not.

I have heard some women say things like "I loved being pregnant! I never felt better in my life!" and "I had so much energy when I was pregnant!" I am not one of those women. This pregnancy stuff was not made for me. I know that I do not look like a delicate flower but don't let my ample curves and wide, child-bearing hips fool you. I am not made for pregnancy. I don't like it and I have had nothing but problems with it. Frankly, I'm starting to question the wisdom of whoever created this whole wacky system.

Harry Potter and the Giant Letdown

I finished the Harry Potter book today. It was the first one the series that didn't leave me wanting more. I had it figured out by page 200 and that's not good. I found the ending to be anit-climactic kind of dull. The whole thing seemed forced. Worst of all the ending was written in a way that made me think the author is going to try to milk more out of the series instead of sticking with the 7 year / 7 book series that seemed to be working so well.

In short, this book was not worth the 2 year wait. Bah I say!

Harry Potter

Yippee! I get to get the new Harry Potter book at 12:01 tonight! We'll have to see if I feel like waiting in line with a bunch of hyper 10 year olds or not though. I may just go pick it up tomorrow morning. Of course that means I have to miss out on the Harry Potter party going on during the book sale but there again is the issue of the hyper 10 year olds. Sigh. It's too hot to decide anything right now. I'm going to go sit in front of the AC for an hour.

If I ever do this again

A note to myself-
If you ever decide to get pregnant again make sure that it's during the winter and not during the longest streak of 90+ degree weather Minnesota has had in 10 years.

Also, be an author when you grow up.

Cheap Seats

If you are not watching the show Cheap Seats on ESPN's Classic Sports network then you are missing out on some funny, funny stuff. I just happened to come across it one night when I couldn't fall asleep and I've been trying to catch it ever since then. It's on at 9 so do yourself a favor and check it out.

Fighting shows

Joseph has been on a mission lately to get us to let him watch what we call "fighting shows". Those are shows like Spider Man, Power Rangers, Pokemon and a bunch of other crap. We told him that in our house 5 year olds can't watch fighting shows but he's sure that he's old enough now. He's even gone so far as to refuse to watch some of his regualr favorites because he's decided that they are "baby shows". He won't let it drop! I bet we have the fighting shows argument about 3 times a day at least.

The funny thing is that he's convinced that all the other 5 year olds in the world are allowed to watch fighting shows and that he's the only one who can't. I don't know where he gets that from. I mean, he's probably right because most people let their kids watch crap but how does he know that?

It's so loud in here!

Ok, so I just had both my ears flushed out. I'm amazed at how loud everything seems! Even the noise of the keyboard clicking seems to echo across the room.

I had a little bit of wax. Ok, a lot of wax. Ok, huge, solid masses of wax. I saw what they flushed out of my ears and I'm a little amazed that all that crap actually fit in there. The human body is an amazing (and disgusting) thing.

I asked why this happened since I've never had an ear wax problem before and the doctor said "Pregnancy does strange things to the body". Yeah, duh.

Now what?

I have to go to the doctor in a few minutes because I woke up this morning unable to hear out of my left ear. What the hell?

Outbreak!

I looked in the mirror this morning and discovered that my face has broken out in freckles. Like, a lot of them. They're all across my nose and the tops of my cheeks and along my hairline. I haven't had freckles like this since I was a little kid. I think I remember reading that can happen when you're pregnant but it's funny that it happened overnight.

In other news I'm having a hard time taking a deep breath. Someone (I'm not naming names) seems to be stretching out as far as she can. I think she has her feet planted firmly on my bladder and her head lodged up under my lungs. By the way, I'm aware that she's not really right on my bladder but that's exactly what it feels like.

At this point the baby is nearly 13 inches long and weighs about 1 pound 12 ounces. Mostly all she has to do now is get bigger and fatter. Pretty much everything else is done except for the lungs developing a little bit more. Oh, and she also has to practice those soccer kicks. Are all babies this busy? Because it seems like she moves a lot! She hasn't stopped all day.

Phew!

Joseph slept through the night in his bed last night! A big change from the past week or so (especially the past few nights when he has been up from about 3:30 - 6:00)! He got up once at 3:30 to use the bathroom and he said "I'll only bother you for a second and then I'll go back to bed" And he did! At about 7:00 he crawled into bed with me and snoozed for a bit more. I was just about dancing with joy. Now he just needs to keep it up. All of us have been suffering from some big-time sleep deprevation so it was nice for everyone to get a good nights sleep. In the morning I made a big fuss over what a big boy Joseph was and how proud we were of him. He seemed pretty pleased with himself too. Over breakfast he kept saying "And I'm a big boy and I slept good and you only had to help me one time when I went to the bathroom and I got a checkmark on my chart and....."

More good news, last night for dinner he ate a bowl of applesauce, some cheese and about a quarter of a hamber patty. He ate the hamburger with almost no fuss at all. Then at the store he picked out some Scooby Doo mac and cheese that he wants to try. We're going to make it tonight se we'll have to see how that goes. Pasta is the big obstacle we're trying to overcome right now in food therapy.

So, all in all, things have been pretty good since about 7:00 last night.

Does heaven have book stores?

Today Joseph saw a picture of Maddi and he started talking about heaven and how she went there with his fish Dorothy. Then he started talking about when he would go to heaven and if he could be a kid in heaven. We told him he could probably do whatever he wanted there. He said "The blue fairy and other people will make me a kid again?"

Then he started asking if he could get Beanie Babies in heaven. We said he could and he said "Do they have gift shops in heaven? How about book stores?"

Then he started to worry about what would happen when Jesse and I died and went to heaven. He started to cry and said "Kids needs grown ups to take care of them! When you die I won't have any parents anymore!"

Of course we promised him that we wouldn't die for a long, long time and we would be around for a long time to take care of him and no matter what we would always be be his parents forever and ever. That seemed to make him feel better and he said "And we'll get to be a family in heaven and all be together! ........ And they have gift shops right?"

Geez, that kid.

It's 10000 degrees outside

Joseph and I just got back from his first ride around the block on his new bike. He was a pro.Once he was convinced of the fact that the training wheels would keep him from tipping over he just flew right down the sidewalk. He looked so cute wobbling along with his little bike helmet on. I looked cute too waddling along with my big butt and my hair plastered to my head with sweat generated the second I stepped outside in the 10000 degree heat.

Creepy

I had a dream last night that the baby was born 2 months early. She had three legs and her face was all squished in. I couldn't get her to nurse at all and I wanted to take her to a doctor but we couldn't afford to because Jesse quit his job. He spent all our money of a bunch of those little rides that are at the mall that you put a quarter into and they kind of shake around for a minute. He thought we could travel around like we were in a carnival or something. It was just bizzare and upsetting. I ket crying because I couldn't get the baby to eat but no one seemed to think it was that big of a deal. I must have some nursing anxiety that I need to work through or something.

This shirt is bananas

Joseph has only heard the very heavily edited version of Hollaback Girl on the radio. Because of that he doesn't know there are any swear words in it. Add that to the fact that he never hears those words anyway and you've got the perfect recipe for one adorably innocent kid. There's nothing funnier than when he hears the song on the radio and happily sings along "It's my shirt, it's my shirt!".

On another note, this morning when we woke up I had a terrible headache and I asked Joseph to do some Reiki on me for a minute. I guess he wasn't in the mood because he whined "I don't want to be stuck up here doing Reiki for a woman!". I guess he had important things to do.

Overprotective much?

How old do your kids have to be before you stop sneaking into their rooms at night to lay your hand on their chest and make sure that they're still breathing?

I have a feeling Joseph is going to be waking up to me doing that when he's 18.

Happy Birthday Joseph!

Happy Birthday to my baby boy!

Yesterday Grandma Judy came and we shopped for about 6 hours. Presents for everyone including the baby who got her crib. It was a fun day but I think we're all still a little tired.

Today we had lunch with Grandma and Grandpa, Becky, Matthew and Amanda at Space Aliens. After that we went to buy some fireworks to set off tonight. When we told the guy there it was Josephs birthday he threw in some free fireworks. I thought we should go around to a bunch of other places and see what we could get for free when we told people it was Joseph's birthday. ("This is a nice car dealership you've got here. Did I mention it was my son's birthday?") Later Bill, Pam and the boys stopped by with a present for Joseph. He invited them to "make themselves at home" and "have a little fun".

The plans for the rest of the night include setting off the fireworks and dinner from Burger King. Joseph keeps reminding us that it's his day and he can do whatever he wants. He even tried to use that when I caught him picking his nose.