Badge of honor? Seriously?

As I enter week 35 of this pregnancy, and as Grace continues to drop lower and lower I have discovered something that I dreaded. Stretch marks. Blasted stretch marks.

I managed to get through all 39 weeks of pregnancy with Jack without a single stretch mark on my abdomen. How? Probably because I allowed myself to become the size of a small whale while pregnant with Jack. I guess growing all over prevents stretch marks on your belly because the weight is everywhere instead of all in front.

This time, however, I decided to be more healthy, more active and NOT gain as much weight. My reward? Back pain, belly pain, and stretch marks.

"They" say that getting stretch marks during pregnancy should be like wearing a badge of honor.

I say Bull. These suckers don't go away.

I don't care how superficial it sounds. I guess I'll throw out all my bikinis.

Grace's Room, step 1 complete

Who's idea was it to move just a couple months before having a baby?

Oh right.

Well, we've been so busy with the house that I am now completely unprepared for this kid. That being said it was time to set a date to paint her room. My mom and sister were so kind as to help. I suppose we could have done it on our own but I'm finding my independent spirit starting to wane in these last weeks.

A couple months ago I was browsing baby bedding online and found a set that I fell in love with. I happened to be on the phone with my sister and sent her the link. I NEVER would have purchased the set. Sorry, I don't like spending more on my kids crib bedding than on my own bedding. So my wonderful, generous, fabulous sister offered to buy it. She insisted, so who am I to refuse? Weeeee.

So there is the base for the room. Now to branch out from that. I took the little pillow with me to Lowe's to pick out the colors for the walls. I knew that I wanted a beige color for the walls with a wide pink stripe around the center to accent the pink in the bedding. In the 5 minutes that I was at Lowe's I managed to pick the perfect colors (if I do say so myself).

It's always a shock when you put that first roller of colored paint onto a white wall but wow am I pleased with the way it looks. I still need to do the stripe (duh, can't put tape on wet paint), and I still need a lot for the room, but the basics are done now. I have a crib, bedding, rocker (which DOESN'T match! *gasp*) and a couple outfits.

Oh, and as a side note, Leah also gets double bonus points for packing all of my painting supplies into a clear bin so that I could find them in the wall of boxes that is now consuming my basement.



Jack even got to help.



Apparently Phoebe approves of the bedding as well. Darn cats.

Do we have a mad pruner in our midst?

Eric's parents bought us a cute little hibiscus tree when we moved into the house. I put it out front between the front door and the garage. Well, it lost a few leaves from being transplanted and in a new kind of light, but no big deal. After a week or so it stopped loosing any leaves and it still looked half decent. Well, maybe another week passed and I caught a glimpse of it and it seemed more sparse than I remembered. I went to take a look and sure enough on the back of the tree there were branches missing! How strange. I thought first that it was animals but the cut was perfect, like it was cut. Eric suggested that maybe he hit it somehow with the weedwacker but then the branches would have been on the ground.

But I dismissed it as just being strange.

Then on Saturday I took a look at it again and MORE branches are missing! Cut off perfectly like with clippers or something. My poor little hibiscus tree looks so pathetic!

What an odd thing to happen.

33 weeks down, 7 to go

And frankly, I'm exhausted! The shame of it is that I haven't had any time to just wallow in this pregnancy like I did with Jack. Not with staging a house, selling a house, packing a house, moving, unpacking a house, watching a 2 year old and taking care of my family, all with a full time job. Wow, that sounds so much worse in writing!

But over the last few weeks, when I wasn't really paying attention, Grace has continued to grow into her tight quarters. And boy is she a squirmer! I really need to remember to video the little acrobatic performance she likes to put on for us in the evening when I finally sit down. I tell everyone what a mover she is but they are all absolutely amazed once they finally see it.

There! She must have felt me talking about her because she just ran her foot under my rib.

But the good news is that now that the house is unpacked, pictures are hung and we have 7 weeks to go I can finally concentrate on getting ready for Grace. Of course, that still doesn't include any rest. LOL. We need to bring all of Jack's baby stuff over from storage (pack-n-play, swing, highchair, clothes), paint Grace's room, buy her a dresser, I need to paint some wall hangings to match her bedding set, acquire some clothing essentials and feeding essentials and then maybe, just maybe I'll have a couple days to relax before she makes her arrival!

Exhausted yet from reading all that work? I am!

How young is too young?

So we've moved into our house. Jack loves the freedom he has with the addition square footage. And we love that we have "freedom" from Jack with the ability to keep an eye/ear on him.

So I'm getting dinner ready and Eric is on the computer in the office and Jack is driving his tractor in circles around the house. Suddenly it's quiet. Eric comes into the kitchen and starts laughing. Apparently we had just left TBS on tv and Sex and the City had come on but none of us were paying attention. Well, except for Jack.

There was my two year old, leaning on the coffee table, popping grapes in his mouth like they were bon-bons, totally absorbed in the episode of Sex and the City.

*Note - no one in this house had seen a single episode until today. But Jack's a fan now.

Farewell dear townhouse

Well it's finally here. It's the last week in our cute little townhouse. It served us well. We have a lot of memories in this house. It was our first house purchase to get us out of paying rent, this is where Jack was born, this is the only house our youngest kitty Danny has ever known. There have been a lot of long afternoons sitting in the living room watching Eric play his playstation or xbox (mostly before Jack). This was the first house that I helped to install a door (to the attic). It's also the first house that I've had to kick a door out (in my black high heel boots) because I got locked in. Any casting calls for a new Charlies Angel?

We've been here 6 1/2 years and we still managed not to get every room painted how we wanted it. But I tell you what. I had this house organized! I realized that more and more as I packed things to move. I'm going to have to find all new slick and nifty ways of organizing things in the new house now.

And now we're all packed. Kitchen is rendered useless with just some paper plates a can opener and a pizza pan left to be used. Potted plants have all been sent to mom's house and the clematis has been dug up and potted and sent to moms. I hope we didn't kill it.

Stress levels have been high but through it all I think Jack is doing absolutely fantastic. When we're packing he just runs around and amuses himself. He'll bounce from room to room to see what everyone is doing. Whenever he looks for something and it's been packed already we just tell him it's been put in a box to take to the new house. He seems to understand. At least my poor tired mind it telling me that he understands.

And now for the circus that will be our weekend. Friday morning Eric goes to work and Jack goes to daycare. Mom is coming to help me when the movers show up at dawn. At least I hope they show up at dawn. Then they take all our worldly possessions and store them over the weekend in a hot truck in a hot parking lot somewhere. Eric comes home half day at least and we have to pile all cleaning materials, my computer, the contents of my fridge and our luggage into our cars and drive down to stay with mom. Oh, how can I forget. My poor poor kitties will all be piled into my car for the 45 minute drive to my moms. Phoebe is lucky, she gets to sit on my lap but the other two have to be crammed into carriers for the trip. I fully expect to be covered in a brand new, fresh off the cat fur coat by the time I get to my moms.

I am going to do all I can to rest and relax on Saturday and Sunday because the circus resumes on Monday morning. Where we get up at the butt-crack of dawn to drive through rush hour back up to our house to a 9am settlement. Get through that as fast as possible and then race to the next settlement at 10:30. Lord help us. With any luck we'll get out of the second settlement, get to our new house and the movers will be waiting for us with my very toasty earthly possessions still in the truck from Friday.

Oh, and have I mentioned how difficult and exhausting it is to do all of this while 7 months pregnant?

Give me strength.

Animal, Vegetable or Mineral?

Jack : "Mommy, you're a boy."
Mommy: "No honey, Mommy is a girl."
Jack : "Mommy, you're a gweerl."
Mommy "Yes honey, Mommy is a girl. Can you say girl?"
Jack : "gweerl"
Mommy: "Close enough honey."
Jack : "Daddy is a boy."
Mommy : "That's right honey, Daddy is a boy and you are a boy too."
Jack : "No, I'm an alligator."
Mommy : "Ok honey."


Update 6/23/08 - I feel obligated to inform you that he is no longer an alligator. He's now a dinosaur.

Not so Hershey Park happy

I believe the ad goes something like "Hershey park happy, Hershey park glad." Well, let me tell you, we were not so Hershey Park happy and more like Hershey Park sad. It all started the night before. Jack either had a little flare-up from his virus or had some new bug starting and he and I were up most of the night. I'm pretty sure neither of us got much sleep after 1:00am. Strike 1. But when we got up at 7:00 he seemed ok. A little whiney but generally ok. Of course he didn't drink he milk or eat much breakfast. Strike 2. Oh, did I mention that the forecast was for 97 degrees? Strike 3. So we made the trip out, with a quick stop to pick up Aunt Leah. He didn't nap the whole way there. Strike 4. But he was still generally in good spirits and was looking forward to riding rides. Well we got there and he closed his finger in the door. Strike 5. He wasn't hurt but was upset enough that he needed to be carried by Daddy. Strike 6. Well we got to ride the Chocolate World ride and he was ok on that but once we were back outside and walking into the park he just wouldn't drink anything and it was so hot. Strike 7. After being there for about 30 minutes he started whining and saying something so we got down to hear what he said and he was asking to go back to Daddy's car and go home. Poor thing. We were hoping that if we could make it to the water rides that he would be ok but it didn't look like that was going to happen. Time to go home. No one was having any fun and we were all exhausted and we had only been there a total of an hour. We did ride the monorail and get a breeze but then we just picked up lunch and went home. Fortunately Jack did nap on the way home, or I should say as soon as we got into the car, so that was good. And by the time we got him home he seemed just fine.

So, mental note for all. If it's going to be 97 degrees, don't even bother taking a toddler to an amusement park. I, for one, feel like an idiot and an awful parent.

Oh, but as a side note, we were there just long enough for me to get a good flip-flop shaped tan on my feet...

Jack graduated...

... to a big boy bed! And he LOVES it.

I had mentioned to him several weeks ago that we were soon going to get him a big boy bed and that his crib was going to go away. He promptly said "NO." So I didn't push the subject, I would just mention it occasionally. Well we needed to get it done soon because we didn't want to be changing anything like that too close to the move and we don't want to do it too close to Grace being born (we don't want him to resent that Grace "stole" his crib) so it was finally time.

We took Jack to the mattress store and told him that we were going to buy him a big boy bed. He loved trying out all the different beds in the store. We got the mattress home and then took him to Target to shop for a bedding set. We picked out a bedding set and said that it was all his, picked out a pillow and said it was all for him. We would hand him the items and he would put them in the back of the shopping cart! So we got home and told him that it was going to be the last night in the crib and that tomorrow we were going to take the crib apart and put his big boy bed together.

So Sunday comes and we get to work. Jack is thrilled! He even grabbed a wrench out of the toolbox and "helped" Eric take the crib apart. And I tell ya, we couldn't get that bed together fast enough. And the moment, that absolute moment that the sheets and comforter were on the bed he crawled in and told Eric to tuck him in. It was a hit!

He slept all night in his big boy bed with no problems!!

You mean I can blow bubbles in my MILK!

Like any good mother should do... I taught my son how to blow bubbles in his milk. In retrospect I'm thinking I shouldn't have showed it to him because he's going to always want to do it but the shear delight on his face made it all worth the mess.

Jack's 2nd trip to DC

We thought it would be fun to go visit Bruce and Jamie in DC. We were right! We took Friday off of work and left early so that we could stop at the Baltimore Aquarium. We figured Jack would love to see all the fishies. Despite the torrential rain on the way down it was an uneventful drive. And, as luck would have it, it stopped raining when we got to Baltimore (and didn't start again until we were on our way home on Sunday).

Jack DID love the fishies... for about the first 30 minutes. LOL. I guess to a 2 year old all the fish start to look the same after a while. And I think after being in the car for so long he needed to really run around and stretch his legs... so he did... in the lobby...









After the aquarium we were on to DC and Bruce and Jaime's house. We were worried that he would be shy because he hadn't spent a lot of time with Bruce or Jaime and he's never been to their house but apparently we had nothing to worry about. Little stinker made himself right at home and couldn't have been happier there.

The rest of friday was low-key with just a quick trip to Target to get bedtime books that I forgot to pack. Of course Jack managed to make even a quick Target trip exciting by falling off the back of the cart and bloodying his lip.

Saturday was a layed-back tour of DC. We made it to the museum of natural history to see the dinosaurs but that didn't last too long. We saw that they had an insect exhibit and that was a hit. Jack loved the big spiders and was showing them to anyone that happened by. On our walk back we did get to go on the Carousel. Jack had never been on one before and he was just grinning from ear to ear.

















Saturday evening was pleasant with Jack helping to water plants on the back patio and sweeping up under the bird feeder. I tell ya, this kid can't stand a mess.

Sunday morning it was time to go home but I'd like to say that it was a great weekend all around.

Mother's Day

We played it fairly low-key for Mother's Day. With the new house coming on in June we decided not to do presents and such. So dinner it was. Saturday dinner with my parents and Sunday was dinner with Eric's parents.

We did get some good pictures though. Oh, and Jack really liked P.F. Changs and the chopsticks. That little bugger was even able to pick up some food with his chopsticks and eat it!

Picnic at Valley Forge

When I was growing up we lived in an apartment so making trips to Valley Forge to play or for picnic was a fairly common occurrence. But we haven't been there in years and years so dad had the wonderful idea that we should go. We figured Jack would love it, lots of open space to run around.

It turned out to be a fabulous idea. Mom and dad brought the same blanket that we used all those years ago, we all brought pillows to sit and lay on and we had lots and lots of snacks (and sake and champagne). The only thing that I was mildly concerned about was how much Jack would want to run around and how much one of us would be jumping up to chase him. Turns out it never occurred to him to run far. Instead he just walked around gathering sticks.

Apparently my mother has been training him as cheap child labor and has taught him how to gather sticks and put them into a wood pile. I guess the training worked, there were so many sticks there (duh, it's the woods) and Jack can't stand a mess (that's my boy!) so he started gathering sticks and making his own wood pile.

Then it was time for some bubble fun. Jack LOVES bubbles so we were taking turns teaching him how to blow bubbles without putting his mouth on the bubble stick. I think the funniest part was when mom was sitting on the ground doing bubbles with him and Eric, Leah and dad all stood behind them pelting them with bubbles..... mom never knew!

We'll definitely have to do this again.

You mean I can COLOR in the bathtub?

Whoever thought to make "crayons" out of colored soap was a genius. Uncle Bruce bought these crayons for Jack for either his birthday or Christmas and I finally had the guts to break them out and let Jack give it a rip. Wow were they a hit! Mildly annoying to clean up, but definitely a hit!