Fatty McFatButt

That's me! I am now in the + range for my pregnancy weight. I have gained back all that I lost during the morning sickness time plus a little bit more. The doctor said it's ok though since the baby seems healthy and everything else seems to be on track. She told me the swelling in my fingers and feet is normal too and not a problem since my blood pressure is so good. Most likely it's just water retention. So things are looking good ...... as long as I don't catch a glimpse of my backside in any mirrors.

One more thing

I have a funny Joseph story to share ..... of course.

The other night he was taking a bath and I was downstairs. Jesse was in our room. (We've started letting him be in the bath by himself for little bits of time now. It still freaks me out.) I heard a big splash and then nothing else for a minute so I called up and asked if he was ok. He was silent for a second then in this frantic voice he says "I got a little red cut from picking up mommy's purple thing!" He meant my razor blade that someone had forgotten to move while getting his bath ready. I ran up the stairs, Jesse ran in from the other room. We get him out of the tub and it turns out that he has a tiny, tiny cut on one finger. It's bleeding a little bit and this totally freaks him out. Jesse was dabbing at it with a washcloth and Joseph was just crying and crying and crying. He said "Does this mean I'm going to died?" After we reassured him that he would not die from a tiny cut on his finger he had a new worry. "How can I walk around looking like this"? he wailed. After we calmed him down a bit he got angry. "Why would you even buy that thing Mommy?" A valid question since I've drawn blood on myself many-a-time with those purple things. I asked him why he didn't say something right away when he got hurt and he told us he was afraid we would be angry. Poor kid. It's a rough life when you're 5 and you think that a tiny cut on you finger will result in either getting in trouble or dying or being turned into a mutant freak not suitable to walk around in normal society.

Holy crap!

I can't believe how soon this baby is coming. I was talking about it last night with Becky and Jesse and I'm totally freaking out. I tried to comfort myself by saying I had gotten Joseph this far without any major damage but I'm worried I won't be able to have the same luck twice. I just know I'm going to drop this kid on it's head or feed it window cleaner on accident or scar it emotionally when I don't respond exactly the right way to it's cries. Ack!

In lighter news, the weekend was good. We went to the Mall of America with Judy on Saturday. That was fun. Jesse and Joseph got cute matching Viking jereys and I got way to much make-up. Joseph went on some rides at Camp Snoopy, including a ride that nearly scared the living daylights out of him. Basically you sit on a bench and get strapped in and then the bench kind of bounces up and down. He said he liked it but it was kind of hard to tell by the way he was slumped over in his seat hanging onto the lap bar and the little boy next to him for dear life. No big shock that he didn't want to go on it again.

Yesterday Jesse, Becky and I went to a show at the Chanhassen Dinner Theater. (Yes, we were just there but we were able to get a really good deal on tickets via a promotion they were running. For a while it didn't look like we would be able to go but then everything just kind of fell into place and I'm glad it worked out.) It was a two man show depicting the history of the world. It was very funny, it had a lot of laugh out loud parts and we all enjoyed it very much. We also all agreed that the best part was the song about the Potato Famine. Who knew starvation made for such awesome dinner theater?

So, a good weekend. It was nice to be out and doing stuff since in a few weeks we won't be able to pick up and go as easily.

Happy be-lated birthday to my dad (even though I already said it to him on the actually day of his birthday). I had a dream last night that we were making sushi and you kept putting mushrooms in everything. I woke up cursing your name.

Telling it like it is

Yesterday Joseph and Jesse were on the couch rough-housing and being silly. Joseph said "You're stinky Daddy!" Jesse said "That's a pretty rude thing to say". Joseph pauses for a beat and then says "Yeah, well. It's a rough life."

And then we all laughed.

Ouch

I've been feeling really run down the past couple of days, kind of achy all over and sooooo tired. I think maybe I have a bit of a bug. Today I've been having period-like cramps on and off since I woke up. I'm really ready to be done being pregnant.

My funny, funny boy

Joseph cracks me up.

Yesterday we were going to go to the nursing home but he was a little unsure about going after what happened last time. (I think I wrote about it but if not, there was a lady there who kept grabbing at him and chasing after him in her wheelchair and tried to take him to her room and told him not to tell me.) I promised him that I would keep an eye on him and help him out if she bothered him. He comforted himself by saying that maybe she wasn't even there anymore, maybe she went to go live with her kids or heaven. (I really had to bite my lip to keep from laughing at the unintentional innapropriatness of that one.)

We went and the lady was there. Joseph was very nervous. He wanted to dance to the music but he was freaked out too so he just kind of danced in tiny little cirlces around me. Eventually he would move further and further away but he kept running back to me and asking if I was keeping an eye on him. The whole time he stayed as far away from the lady as possible and kept one eye on her.

Eventually he forgot all about her because she seemed to be paying no attention to him. He danced and sang and walked around shaking hands with the residents of the home. (They love him!) At the end of our visit we were sitting at a table kind of near the grabby lady and Joseph hopped off his chair, walked over to her and said "You know the rules of the nursing home better now and you know you can't be grabbing at me like that anymore!" She either didn't hear him or didn't understand him but I ran over and grabbed him before he could say anymore. He happily resumed eating his cake and I sat there shaking from trying to laugh silently. I certainly wasn't going to scold him because he's right, she shouldn't have been grabbing him like that. Plus, it was too funny.

He cracks me up.

Oh baby!

Joseph may have seen Jesse watching Sports Center one too many times. This morning when we got up he ran downstairs and turned on the tv while I went into the bathroom. Sports Center was on and I could hear Joseph saying "Yes! Baseball is on! My team won! I have enough points! Oh no, no, no, no, YES! It's a home run, it's outta here! Oh baby!" I came downstairs and he's sitting on the couch waving his arms around like a madman. He looked and sounded just like Jesse does when he watches Sports Center. It was pretty cute.

That's good irony

Yesterday was mine and Jesse's 6th anniversary. Thank you for a wonderful 6 years sweetie, I love you!

We had a very nice time having dinner and seeing Beauty and the Beast at the Chanhassen dinner theater. The show was almost as good as the gaint piece of cake that we split for dessert. We had really good seats too, right in the center in the second row up.

The only sad thing about yesterday was that my fingers have swollen up all of the sudden and I had to take of my wedding ring. It was turning my finger blue and I was barely able to get it off. My stretch marks and ever-widening bottom don't bother me but I was really sad to have to take my wedding ring off. The good news is that I have my grandma's wedding ring to wear and it's quite a bit bigger than mine so it fits me for now. I hope my fingers won't swell up too much more since they already look like big puffy sausages to me. Oh well, all the better to match my ankles I guess.

Mom and Dad brought over a handmade shelf and three pictures frames for the baby's room. They are so cute! We hung the shelf on the wall over the changing table and mom gave me some pails filled with baby stuff (like diaper cream) to put on it. Fun! It's really starting to look like a baby's room. I guess that's a good thing since I'm due in just 8 weeks. Ack!

Stuff

We searched every store in St Cloud last night and today looking for a very specific clothing organizer that I am not forced to believe never actually existed in the first place. I must have dreamed it. I wanted a canvas clothing organizer that we could hang over the back of Joseph's closet door and that we could put outfits in so that he was all ready to go and had his clothes picked out ahead of time. We couldn't find it anwhere. What a bummer. We did find a living room rug though so that's a good thing.

Jesse was poking my belly today trying to wake the baby up and she gave him a good hard kick. He got a kick (ha ha) out of that. It wasn't so funny for me because she spent the next hour kicking me right under my ribs.

A good day

Joseph ate ravioli at food therapy today. He just about had a melt down when he first saw it on the plate but his therapist was able to get him to try it after just a few minutes. He tasted it and then said "Sometimes I whine about trying new things and then I like it after all!" Color me suprised but he ate about 5 little raviolis all together. It was pretty cool. I think he was proud of himself too because he asked his therapist to leave some of the ravioli so that he could take it home and show his daddy how he could eat a new food.

I'm pretty sure he didn't know that it was pasta or we probably would not have had so much success but what he doesn't know won't hurt him. It was also a big deal because he really does not normally eat anything with a sauce on it. For him to have tomato sauce and not even complain was pretty cool.

Baby steps, I know but it's still a pretty big deal to me.

I need a new house

I think I need to move. This afternoon Joseph and I left to go to an appointment around noon. First thing I noticed was that all the car doors were unlocked. Then, as I was getting Joseph into his seat I noticed that the front seat had papers and jumk spread all over tha place. I went around to the front and the drivers side and the door was parly open. Not open enough to make the dome light go on but not shut tight either. All the stuff in the center consol was gone through and some papers that had been clipped to the visor were spread out on the seat. There was also a key to the other key laying out on the seat. Clearly someone got into the car (I must have let a door unlocked although I'm usually pretty careful about that) and went through it looking for money or cds or something. I'm almost 100% certain that nothing was missing, there was nothing of any kind of value in the car anyway.

Even though nothing was damaged or taken it's still a really yucky feeling. It was probably just some dumb kids. If it had been anyone with half a brain they would have taken the key to the other car and looked in there too since it was parked on the street last night. But it's yucky. Of course this kind of thing could happen anywhere but now I want to move into a house with a 20 foot electric fence around it.

So that's fun.

Joseph had his appointment with the new child psychiatrist today. She was really nice but it was another case of someone talking to us and saying "Yes, it sounds like he has some issues but there's really nothing I can do for you." Frustrating. She wants to see him again in about 3 months after he has been back in school for a while. She gave me some paperwork to have his teachers fill out after he's been in class for a month or so to get their take on his behavior. I guess that's something. Again, she seemed very nice but I just want someone to say "Here's what's wrong and here are some concrete things you can do to deal with it".

I'm just in a terrible mood right now. I don't think the weather is helping. I think a good cry and some ice cream might help. Sigh.

Mmmmm.....Food

Jesse was laughing at me the other night because he found a scrap piece of paper by the computer that I had written the word "Food" on. That's all it said. I don't remember why or when I did it.

Duh

I go to this website every Monday that has a week-by-week pregnancy calender to see what's going on with the baby's development. This week was pretty short on baby info but had a lot of stuff about how around this time pregnancy can become really uncomfortable. To that I say "Duh". For weeks now I've had pain just getting out of bed or walking around the block. I didn't need a website to tell me that now that I've got a 3 and a half pound human being inside of me that I'm going to be having some discomfort.

I've noticed lately how hard it is to get up off the floor when I've been sitting down playing with Joseph or something. The other day I was home alone and decided to take a shower and shave my legs. After I was done I just sat there wondering how in the world I was going to get up off the shower floor. I kind of had to rock back and forth and heave myself up. This was made all the more graceful looking by how seriously cramped our shower is. I decided that from then on out I won't sit down in the shower (or take a bath) unless Jesse is home in case I need him to help me stand up.

I've been taking a lot of baths lately, it's a big help with making my back feel better. I also found them to be helpful with soothing the heebie-jeebies in my legs. They've gotten so bad at night lately that I often have a hard time falling alseep at night because I just can't keep my legs still. This is often associated with pregnancy and of course that means that I'm having problems with it. From here on out if I hear a woman say how much she loved being pregnant or how it was tht best she ever felt I am slapping her.

Rah Rah Rah

Yesterday I bought the baby the cutest little Viking's cheerleader outfit. I figured we can put her in it and put Joseph in his jersey and have their pictures taken together. We'll have to get Joseph a new jersey though since his old one is a Randy Moss one. Yuck. Anyway, the baby's outfit is the cutest little thing that you ever did see and I thought it was rather appropriate given that she's already begun practicing those high kicks and flips.

Aurgh!

Do you know how hard it is to put Joseph in time out? He looks at me with these big eyes filled with tears and in the most heartbreaking little voice he cries "I thought we loooooooved each other! I thought we were best friends!"

It's even harder to get him to stay there. A 5 minute time out ends up lasting 20 minutes or more as we battle for control. I say sit down, he jumps up. I say be quiet, he talks. I say leave your pants on, he strips naked. In the end I'm exhuasted and I feel like he's gotten nothing out of it. Right now he's happily sitting on the couch playing with a Star Wars sticker book and singing some song he made up. I just want to say "Be sorrowful damn it!" If I have to feel bad for acting like a nag then he should have to feel bad for driving me to it.

Darn kids. Why am I doing this again?

Good Night!

I'm writing this from y parents house where Joseph and I slept last night. I use the term "slept" very loosely since Joseph spent most of the night flipping around, throwing various limbs over me and making loud noises with his mouth and nose. I spent most of the night gritting my teeth and getting leg cramps.

Anyway, we slept here because last night I found a few mites in my bedroom and some on the frame of Joseph's door. I made Jesse spray the whole house with bug spray, wash all the bedding and decontaminate the AC. I figured it might be best if Joseph and I weren't around to breath in the bug spray all night long. Jesse chose to sleep at home though. I'm sure he's fine.

Despite the lack of sleep Joseph seems to be doing ok. I have to take him to therapy in a little bit where I'm sure he will have a complete and total meltdown. It's what he does. After therapy I'll drive him around until he falls alseep then I'll take him home so we can both catch a little shut-eye.

My hope is to try to avoid dreaming about the baby again. For the past two night I've dreamed about the baby and each time it was the ugliest flippin' thing you've ever seen. In my dream last night the baby was about 3 months old and needed glasses. For some reason we picked out tinted lenses for her. Her head was too big to fit any of the frames so we had to just kind of stick the lenses to her face. It was ugly. But she could talk so I guess it all evened out.

The gift that keeps on giving

When I was younger and would watch a game show I always thought the host would tell the losers "We're not sending you away empty handed, you'll get some nice party gifts." I always wondered why they got party gifts. It wasn't until very recently (like, last week) that I realized that they were saying parting gifts. That makes a lot more sense I guess.

Anyway, the little birds that were living next to our air conditioner have gone but they're left us a nice party gift: mites. I'm too freaked out by the whole thing to go into too much detail but I will say that every hour or so I spray the air conditioner with toxic chemicals and scrub it off to try to kill the one's that are trying to get inside. This is just a temporary fix until Jesse comes home tonight and tears the AC unit out and fumigates the whole thing.

Opps, I just heard the birds again. I guess they haven't left. Well, I hope they enjoy their last few hours in their nest because come tonight they are learning to fly, ready or not. And for what they've done to our house, I won't be getting them any party gifts.

Heh

I was just cleaning out my email inbox of the 10,000 junk emails I get each day. Usually I just delete them without paying any attention but one caught my eye. It said "You're Black and single and we've found the perfect match for you!". I guess someone out there knows something about me that I don't.

A few more things

We're able to check a few more things off our Need To Do / Need To Buy list this weekend. We got the changing table from Bill and Pam into the baby's room and it fits perfectly. Judy came on Monday and got us a crib matress, a baby sling/carrier and some other odds and ends. (She also got Joseph a SpongeBob Matchbox car set that he has not stopped playing with all day.) SO now we're doing ok, I feel like we're pretty much on track.

Mom also came over this weekend and helped (as in, did it all) clean the living room and Joseph's room. It was awesome. Well, it still is because we've all been working on keeping it neat. That's the trick, just don't let it get bad in the first place. I just need to keep telling myself to not let the little things slid or else they turn into not so little messes.

So what's new with the baby? She weighs about 3 pounds now and is about 15 inches long. That's what the experts say anway. Given how I can feel her stretch out I think she's built more like a giraffe. A really strong giraffe. The baby is also aware of light and dark and can even smell really strong smells and that's a concept so strange to me that I can't even wrap my head around it.

I can't believe that I only have 10 weeks to go. Ack!

Crazy kid

I took Joseph for his 5 year pictures today. He was nuts, wiggling all over the place and yelling over and over to hear his voice echo. Every time the photographer would put him in a position he would wiggle right out of it. She had to keep moving him every time she took a picture. I'm his loving and adoring mother and even I was ready to bonk him on the head by the end. I can only imagine what the photographer wanted to do. I think she was able to get some cute shots though. I'll go get the proofs tomorrow.

One funny thing, when we first when in to get the pictures done we saw that they had one of Joseph's old pictures up in their gallery. It's a really cute one where he's in his pj's hugging his Stitch stuffed animal. He thought that was pretty cool that everyone who came in could see his picture.

This afternoon Joseph asked me to play Legos with him then spent the next 10 minutes whining that I wasn't doing it right. I told him to stop or I wouldn't play with him anymore. He stopped for about 30 seconds then I heard him whisper under his breath "That's not the right way to do that, sucker." When I asked him what he said he tried to cover by saying "I said 'That's a nice thing to build, nice Mommy!'". Smooth.

I made paper yesterday and it was so much fun. I've been spending all day thinking about all the kinds of stuff you could put in paper for interesting effects. How do you think shredded wheat would look in paper?

Mary Jane Gravy

I was on the phone today and Joseph came running up to me and asked when his other Mommy died. I assumed he meant his birth mom so after I got off the phone I asked him what he meant. Here's how it went:
Me: Joseph, who were you talking about when you said your 'other Mommy'?
Joseph: My other Mommy, Mary Jane Gravy.
M: Who's that?
J: The other Mommy I had when I lived in Texas.
M: Where in Texas did you live?
J: Big Hills Mountain.

That was the end of that conversation but a while later I asked him to tell me the town he lived in in Texas again. Here's how that went.
Joseph: I lived in the North of Texas.
Me: What else do you remember about it?
J: I lived by a big hill. We had to go up and and back down it again all the time.
M: Why did you have to go down the hill?
J: I don't know. I was scared of it when I was little because I fell down it one time but then I got braver when I was bigger.
M: What do you remember about being bigger?
J: I was a coal miner.

That was the end of that. I tried to ask more questions but he just wanted to play trains. Here's a funny thing though. Joseph has told Jesse and I many times that he wants to visit Texas. Out of the blue he'll ask how long it takes to get there and if we can go there someday.

Is it just me or is all this kind of strange? I wish I could describe how he sounds when he says these things. It's just so matter of fact, like he was describing what he had for breakfast that morning. It's really kind of spooky.

Anybody? Hello?

Does anyone out there have some spare sushi that I can have? If you could just run it over to me I would really appreciate it. Thanks.

Beautiful and harmless

Joseph and I were in the baby's room/toy room today putting some stuff away and I asked him what he thought of the baby's crib. He said it was "Beautiful and harmless!" Then he expressed some worry that we didn't have blankets in it yet and offered to get one from his room. He's such a sweetie.

We made a bird feeder together today and afterwards Joseph wanted me to go away while he set up a suprise for me. After about 5 minutes he told me I could look and he had spread various kinds of playing cards all over the living room. He told me it was a "Hard Living Hard Working Bird Feeder Making Card Celebration" and that he had 3 games for me to play to thank me for making the bird feeder with him. Seriously, what do you even say to a kid who says stuff like that?