The Newest News

My brother in law's girlfriend had their baby on Saturday night. He's a tiny little sprout, just under 6 pounds and 20 inches long. Cute as heck.
New life is great and wonderful.
I don't have any pictures of the kid, because I'm stupid and forgot to take my camera to the hospital when we visited.
They named him Ashtin, which I'm not crazy about, but hey, he's not MY kid.

There's another side to the coin on this one too, but I don't want to spoil the new baby joy with the drama.

Here's a pic...

Interesting...

Our pediatrician told me I was crazy to still have Ben in our room and that he was only waking up at night for "social visits"

So last night he slept in his crib in Dylan's room.
he went to bed around 8 pm...I didn't hear a peep from him until 4 am.

HALLELUJAH!

I actually slept! At night! A lot!!!
It was great!

That's the good news.
The bad news is that my boobs didn't get the memo and by the time the baby wanted something to eat they were boulders strapped to my chest and I was soaking wet.
Fun.
Nothing sexier than a rock hard tit.




PS: What do you think of the new masthead photo? I love it. It totally symbolizes the change in seasons and my melancholy as of late.
But what do YOU think?

I could write yet ANOTHER post about how tired I am or how much I love coffee, but it has been done to death and back.

Aside from the baby keeping me awake though, there's not much else going on.
Oh, and yes, he DID torture me again last night with his crying and whining.
And yes, I realize that he isn't yet 6 months old, but I KNOW he's doing this on purpose. Some sort of baby vengeance.

This morning, after I woke up at 5 am, I thought "perhaps he's cutting a tooth..." but I rubbed my finger on his gums and didn't feel anything imminent.

Surely, there must be some reason for his sudden assiness. I wish he could just tell me what was the matter. Until then....


--- In Other News ---

My brother in law just popped over, oh how I hate the pop in!
I was wearing a bathrobe and had my hair up in a towel.
Usually anyone knocking on our door is either selling something we don't want, trying to make us Jehovah's Witnesses or attempting to collect on a debt and/or cut off our power/water/cable etc.
What I'm saying is, I pay no mind to my attire when unexpected visitors knock. Ask the UPS guy, he'll tell you what a foxy towel-headed lady I am. Ha ha. Who doesn't love grey sweatpants?

But this time, it was my brother in law. I opened the door and he just laughed.
"What? You don't like my outfit?" I said.

He just laughed.
Turns out he needed to get a washing machine hose that my husband had. Bob has one of everything, I swear. You name it, he's got one. It's really quite incredible the amount of crap the man has collected in the past five years on a very limited budget.

I should test his junk-ability and ask him for some crazy thingamajig...I bet he'd have one or at the very least, know someone who could give him one.

You lurking readers can help me with this task.

Post here and now with something that makes you think "there's surely no way he'd have that", but is still plausible enough that someone COULD have it at their house. No posting "nuclear reactor" or "Osama Bin Laden" I'm 100% sure we have neither.

You post, I'll ask. Let's see how deep the junk pile goes!

Rock a bye baby...

Last night was perhaps the WORST NIGHT EVER in terms of baby wakefulness.

Not only did Ben wake up every two hours, for the first time since birth he wanted to STAY up all night long. No thank you baby sir.

When he woke up at 11 pm, I nursed him, put him back in the crib and he fussed. I popped his paci in his mouth and he quieted down and went back to sleep.

When he woke up at 1 am, I nursed him, put him back in the crib and he fussed. I popped his paci in his mouth and he spit it out and screamed at me. I picked him back up, snuggled him for awhile and he went back to sleep.

When he woke up at 3 am, I nursed him, put him back in the crib and he fussed. I popped his paci in his mouth and he spit it out and screamed at me. I picked him back up, snuggled him for awhile but he wouldn't fall asleep. Then I got a bloody nose. So I put him down and ran to get a tissue. Then he cried while I bled on a tissue. Then I laid down in my bed with him and he fell asleep. I put him back in the crib and he woke up. He didn't cry though, he just cooed and oohed to himself for about a half hour. Then he fell asleep.

When he woke up at 5 am, I cursed him, then I nursed him. Then I snuggled with him in my bed until he fell asleep. I put him back in the crib, he fussed, he cooed and oohed. He screamed a little bit. He finally fell asleep. This is when Bob jumped up, looked at the alarm clock, glared and me and Ben and slammed his head back onto the pillow...all while still half-asleep. He pulled a pillow over his head and started snoring again went back to sleep without snoring at all, because he DOES NOT SNORE! Heh.

When I woke up at 7 am I was bleary eyed and exhausted. I woke up to the house phone ringing. I was in the middle of a crazy ass dream that combined all the horrible school nightmares (nudity, not ready for a test, can't find my locker) with all the regular nightmares (getting chased by criminals, living in a WalMart, etc.) I was partially glad to wake up from that, but partially like, seriously? Who is calling me at 7 am????!!?

It turned out to be someone offering Bob a side job, so I can't be TOO mad. But still. 7 am? That's way freaking early.
The baby slept until 7:30 am, which means I got to take a shower this morning! Yay!

Naturally, I have turned to coffee to help me get through the day...If I could INJECT coffee right into my veins I would. It's just gonna be one of THOSE days.

I'm hoping this performance of Ben's is a one-night only engagement. I can't do a night like last night ever again.
Ever ever.

Did you read that baby? Never ever!!

Buh Bye Baby Stuff

There are several things going on at the Evans Homestead presently...the most apparent of which is something I like to call The Great Baby Stuff Purge!
Since we're not having another baby, we can now safely dispose of, donate, lend out and hand down ALL the baby clothes, gear and accessories.
Thankfully, fate and fortune have aligned and there are no less than five pregnant ladies who are currently in the circle of trust.
A few of these ladies don't really need the donations, and are so far away as to make it not feasible, but they are still in the circle and shall be acknowledged! Shout out to AM and Mer!

Locally we have three four! available drop off points for baby stuff...a friend of mine, a mom from Elizabeth's class (oh wait, two moms!) and our possible future SIL. Sigh.
I'm also a big huge fan of bagging up clothes and donating them to Salvation Army or Big Brothers Big Sisters (which is huge up here) and letting them figure out what to do with them.
I'd estimate that I donate 6 bags (giant trash bags) full of clothes every year. We also GET a lot of hand-me-downs. I also donate shoes and silly toys we hate or are far too loud and annoying...etc. etc. Nice tax write-off, not that I need it.

Currently in our front room are two huge gift bags full of boy baby clothes, a baby bouncer seat, a swing, a bassinet and several assorted huge baby toys for my brother in law's impending infant. Yes! We FINALLY moved Ben out of the bassinet, which he outgrew oh, two months ago. Whoops!

Also ready to be lent out is a very nice port-a-crib which is slated to go to my friend Mandi after she moves into her new house.

This is very sad to me, since giving away my baby stuff is like saying all over again NO MORE BABIES. However, all these new babies coming into the world who I can enjoy and play with and snuggle and then go home without them, I like that too.

Which leads me to...I hate these celeb-moms who have a baby and then two months later are all skinny and flab free. F-off! Jessica Alba! I'm talking to you!
I wasn't model thin before kids, nor was I perfect in EVERY way, but still. My body is a hot mess now after three pregnancies in five years. A. Hot. Mess.

This morning I yawned in front of a full length mirror...never a good look even when you are Angelina Jolie. Anyway, my shirt crept up as I stretched, revealing the sad affair that is my tummy.
Egad!
I better get a piggy bank and start saving now for my plastic surgery...seriously. That tummy is totally not acceptable.
I don't want to look 15 again (maybe I do) and there's no way I ever could...too many bones to break to put me back together that tight ever again. But crap. Could I not look like I was just run over repeatedly with a meat tenderizer? That would rock.

Ben is 5.5 months old and it's time for me to seriously get back to working out, for reals. For REALLY REALS! Finally get this 20 pounds OFF of me! Then maybe try for 10 more.
Then when I finally DO hit the lottery/win at the casino/hit oil in my yard and have my fortune amassed I'll have that much less to do in the way of plastic surgery and I can spend my dollaz on bling.

Notes from a Baby Shower

The whole clan, Bob included, went to his little brother's girlfriend's baby shower this afternoon...

One of the games we played was the "identify the melted chocolate candy in the diaper" game.
First off, ew!
Melted Snickers totally looks like poo! I may never eat Snickers again!
Ok, I will. But not out of a diaper!

Secondly, diapers are SUPER chemically!! I'm really glad that we use cloth. It was really gross. I could barely tell if I was eating Milky Way or Three Muskateers because everything tasted like diaper chemicals. Yuck.

But here's the real story...

For most of the game Dylan was off running around and riding a scooter. He wasn't paying attention to us in the slightest nor did he realize that everyone was tasting candy from diapers.

When he finally came over to our table Bob showed him the Milky Way diaper and said, "Hey Dylan! Look at this!"

"(Insert sound of fake puking here)", Dylan said.
"Watch this Dylan!" Bob said, grabbing a spoon. "You want Daddy to eat the poo?"

"NO! NO NO NO!" Dylan screamed. He freaked out and started covering his face in horror.

Bob spooned up some "poo" and raised the spoon to his lips.
Dylan starting yelling, "No no no!" and had a mini-stroke.
Bob ate the "poo"!
Dylan trembled and his face screwed up in disgust and he ran away in such a horrible fright yelling...
"I can't like that! I can't like that!!"

It was so damn funny, we did it three more times.




PS: I totally tanked the chocolate poo game but won the "What flavor baby food is this?" game hands down. You can't whip a mother of three in that game. It wasn't even hard. I did half the list by sight alone. Cake-walk.

Five years...

Yesterday was our five year anniversary!
Time sure flies when you're having a jillion babies! Or three.

The traditional fifth anniversary gift is something made from wood. I did not get anything wooden. Instead, I got a new fancy electric safety can opener (the kind that cuts off the whole top of the can) and a Dove bar. Mmmm. Though, there was a wooden stick in that Dove bar, so there you go.

Bob didn't want anything, he never does, but he did go to a garage sale and get himself a new (to him) pair of shorts. He got a great deal too, paying just $4 for a like new pair of $20 shorts. Ah, old age is getting to the boy's mind, making him frugal.

We really didn't/couldn't plan anything any more fancy than just spending time together at home since I can't leave the baby for more than an hour or so and the drive time round-trip to anywhere decent up here is an hour. So I guess we could have driven to a restaurant then turned around and came right back home...though, that would have left The Triad home alone, since we have no babysitter...eh, bad idea.

At one point during the evening...after the kids had eaten a bunch of ice cream and Sour Patch Kids and were bouncing off the walls...I said to Bob "Remember five years ago, when we had no kids and no craziness and we went to party in Las Vegas. Ah, that was fun. We can do it again in 18 years."

The anniversary is the reason behind the very flowery banner this month...burgundy and cream, our wedding colors.

In other news:
Benjamin is slowly developing a personality! For the first two months of so, babies are just like hungry lumps. They don't talk, smile, move around too much or really interact with anyone beyond screaming at the top of their lungs when they want to eat or have pooped themselves.
He still does that, the screaming, but I swear in the last week or so he's smiled twice (though he probably didn't mean to!) and has started saying "ooh" and "aah" a little bit instead of just "WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!"

It's only going to get better too!
Yay! And at the same time, boo...because Ben is my last baby, my last newborn, my last little warm bundle of love...and he's already growing and growing up. **Sniffle**
Good thing it seems there are more Evans babies on the horizon...not for us, of course....

Three is the Magic Number

Going into Ben's birth, we knew that we would not be having any more babies.
Bob and I had decided that the best thing would be for me to get the tubal ligation while I was already in surgery since it would add no recovery time and no distinguishable pain to the procedure.
Knowing that number three would be my last baby made this pregnancy all that much more poignant...at first.
By the time I was 36, 37 and 38 weeks pregnant I was saying to myself (and others) "Thank goodness I'm not doing THIS again!"
It wasn't that I had lots of problems or complications, or even pain. It was just the discomfort, the getting huge, the having to wear funny pants.
Ugh.
I was glad to be done, and done for good.

In the morning before the surgery, my OB asked us if we were SURELY sure we wanted the tubal. We were.

As I was wheeled into the room, they asked again. I was sure.

When Ben was born and I saw his precious angel face for the first time, my OB asked me again if I was certain he would be my last baby. And though Benjamin was definitely the most perfect baby that *I* had ever seen, I was still sure he would be the last for me.


As it turns out, the decision wasn't ever mine to make.

When my OB started the surgery, so soon after Ben's birth that he was still in the operating room, he almost immediately said to Bob and I.

"I think you've made a smart decision to do this."

He told Bob to peek over the surgical drapes, which he very reluctantly did.

"Do you see this right here," my OB said, as he unbeknownst to me pointed out the bottom portion of my completely exposed uterus. "This should be about this thick."
He motioned the thickness of about an inch and a half to Bob.
"Your wife's uterus is only *this* thick," he indicated about a third of an inch. "I would have had to advise you not to have any more babies after this one. So this is good that you're doing this."

That somehow lifted some of the sadness I had been feeling about choosing to not have any more babies.
I felt sad that I was determining that I would stop when so many women were wishing that they could decide to have just ONE baby of their own.
I wasn't hoping for 18 kids or anything, or even six, or maybe not even more than the three I had, but making the choice to take the choice away was weighing heavily on me.
Now that I knew that somehow the choice that we had made was totally in line with God's plan for us, it took away a lot of those feelings and thoughts.
No longer did I feel like I was turning away from what might be the path I was intended to take. I felt like I was finally turning down that path -- with my three, just the three, perfect babies.
That's a good feeling.

Benjamin is home!

Because the hospital was too crowded and we were all fine and not needing round the clock nursing anymore, I insisted on being discharged yesterday afternoon.
Tears! The magic potion!
My OB and Ben's pediatrician cleared us both for release and we were all home by 1:30 pm!
As Elizabeth said:
"We're all a family again!"

The kids are beyond THRILLED to have another little person to poke at love and kiss.

My mom is here making meals, helping take care of and wrangle the older kids and keep the house and its occupants clean.
All I have to worry about is myself and Ben, and he's a dream baby so far!
He's a great sleeper. He slept all the way through his first night in the hospital which of course, kept me awake worrying. Duh.
He's an avid fan of nursing, which is also awesome! I expect my milk to come in today or tomorrow and he'll be sooo happy!
Last night (night number two) I'll forever refer to as, "The Night of Burping and Farting: Ben's not a fan"
Every time he had to toot or burp he'd FREAK out first, as though he was going to explode. Then he'd finish and fall back asleep like an angel.
Eventually though, he got himself all worked up and I had to sleep with him right next to me in bed in order for either of us to get any rest. No biggie.
He woke up twice to eat and went right back to sleep both times.

We were up at 6:30ish this morning and while my mom fed and changed Dylan (Elizabeth snoozed a BIT longer than everyone else this morning) I changed Ben, fed him and he went back to sleep. He's just now starting to get fussy, but hey! He napped for almost two hours in his bassinet without me snuggling him and without a pacifier! Victory is mine!

I'm just so happy to be not pregnant anymore, to be home and to be relatively pain free. Percoset helps.
Love you all!
Thanks for all the well wishes!
Enjoy the new pics!

News news news!

No, not me. I'm still pregnant!
Yay!

Here's the new news...
My college roommate and dear friend Joan has had her baby!
Yay!! Even though she was due AFTER me, and that's so not fair!!!!!

She's sketchy on the details, probably because she's so tired.

Baby Scott was born April 26 at about 3:00am! Three weeks early!

That's all the details I got. No weight or nothing! Bah. I need pics!


In other baby making news:

Those Duggar people are doing it again.
18 kids.
That's insane. But at least their kids are all good, presumably. It's hard to get in really bad trouble when you're wearing prarie clothes.
I kid, I kid. I know, to each their own. Whatever.

Because...
You can just have two kids and tons of money and have problems. BAD problems.
Like stupid Nick "Hogan" Bollea. Hopefully he'll really serve the time. Idiot.

I can't stands no more!

Saturday night was fun.
I had some lovely pain and pressure, with a side of Braxton-Hicks.
When it wouldn't get better from laying down and drinking water, I went to the hospital's OB department to get checked out.
After a couple of hours hooked up to monitors in a room the size of my closet, they set me free after a shot of Toradol to relax me muss-kells and told me to take it easy.

Good advice.
However.
Have you met The Destructo Twins?



And their father, the leader of the Darkness Squad?
Their sole mission is to bring down chaos and mayhem upon my head.
In their arsenal of No-Good Tools they have such dastardly methods as Leave Garbage on Floor Everywhere, Eat Chips for Breakfast, Remove Every Book and Toy from Shelf Then Leave Room in Chaos Forevermore! Bwah ha ha!
Not to mention MY personal favorites, Dirty Dishes are Best Stashed Under My Bed and I Don't Even Remember When I Took One Bite of That Banana and Left it Under the Couch to Die.
Their father is also a master of All Bathroom Reading Materials are Best Stored in a Pile on the Floor and Why Shouldn't These Dirty Socks Mingle With the Clean Ones?

Gah!

No no. Relaxing is to invite the Devil himself in to play.
We can not do "relaxing"
Instead, I had four separate nervous breakdowns over the course of two days. Yay!
Efficiency!
I was indeed so crazed with insanity and overwhelmed with craposity that my mom was seriously considering coming out to my house just for the weekend to fold laundry and make me take a nap. No lie.
T'would be hard to do both though, since all the laundry is piled on my bed. But I digress...

After my fourth nervous breakdown last night, I washed a whole sink load of dishes and felt better and accomplished.
Of course, the Darkness Squad quickly assembled a dizzying array of plates, bowls, spoons and cups all in varying levels of filth to replace the dwindling pile I was working through. Love you guys!

It's really no surprise then that at midnight I woke up with stabbing, aching, ripping me in two pains in my lower back and belly.
I tried to go back to sleep, but HA! Pain would not yield to Exhaustion. Pain wins!
At 3:30 am I drove myself to the hospital, again, after three hours of pacing the floor, hoping for the pains to go away. False labor pains go AWAY when you walk around. The BOOKS say so.
Well, Pain does not yield to Books. Pain wins!
I got hooked up to some monitors. Told to drink a huge jug of water and left to writhe. Oh agony!
At least I got to play a game. It was called "Guess When You're Having a Contraction!"
I even got a little buzzer to push every time I thought I was having a contraction. I pushed the button seven times in 45 minutes. Remarkable!
My accuracy was not great, however, since I only had THREE contractions during that time. Boo.
My lovely parting gift...well, first, I didn't get to "part" AND I got 2 lovely liters of intravenous fluids AND a shot of terbutaline to kill the contractions.
It's not a trip to Hawaii, but it'll do.
I also got a fantastic invasive pelvic exam. Whoo ha, hoo ha! Cervix is remaining and I quote the nurse "high, thick and closed" kind of like Snoop Dogg's eyes. Boo yah!

I also apparently have a wonderful consolation prize of bladder infection which they attempted to blast away with some equally wonderful IV antibiotics. Bladder infection??!?! Who gets those!? I thought only swamp rats and homeless people and people who don't change out of their bathing suits fast enough after a swim. Eh, what do I know!

At around 8:30 am they discharged me and I came home on about 3 hours sleep to watch the children (tear apart the house) all day.
Yay!
It's not fair really. The other moms at the OB department get to take home a cute powdery baby after all that grief. All I got was a paper admonishing me to drink more fluids.
Bah.

I'm TIRED.
I swear, if Dylan tries to jump out the window today, I might just let him.

Decisions decisions...

Next week when I go in for my OB appt. I will be 33 weeks preggotastic!
I will be scheduling my C-section, probably for my 38th week, giving me RIGHT NOW less than six weeks to get ready for baby.
Anyone want to come over and help me sort baby clothes? Fold diapers? Beat children Feed children?

I have SOOO MUCH left to do.
The aforementioned clothes sorting and folding. I still don't have a dresser for the baby's clothes, which is sort of OK, since I have no place to put one ANYWAY! Argh.
I do have plastic drawers, which will have to suffice.

The bassinet is already set up in my room. I do have to do some rearrangement of things. All my craft supplies (yarn and fabric and such) are all over the place on MY side of the room. I have to relocate ALL that into my closet and make room for baby's things and clear a spot right next to the bed for the bassinet to live.
Right now one of Elizabeth's baby Cabbage Patch dolls is sleeping in there. It was actually my brothers Cabbage Patch doll when he was a kid. Yes. MY brother had Cabbage Patch Kids. Two in fact.

I still have a lot of sewing to do for the baby. So maybe I'll focus on relocating the yarn stuff first. I have waaay too much yarn. Seriously. Too much. My mom is sending me more wool yarn that she found at her parents house in NJ too, so I'll get even more. AWESOME. I'm addicted.

Last night I made some of those easy cut and tie fleece blankets for the baby while I rewatched the Gauntlet III reunion. Those people are mean and like to curse!
This afternoon I'll be sewing diapers and diaper cover pants while Dylan naps. Fun! Actually, it is fun for me. Isn't that sick?!?!

Oh right, but that's not really the point...
Der! Preggo brain!

Next week when I schedule my C-section they are going to ask me whether or not I want to schedule a tubal ligation for the same time. Meaning they birth the baby and before they stitch me up, they take away my reproductive abilities. :( Sad.

Bob votes yes. I'm undecided. I'm still not sure how much weight Bob's vote has. I mean, yes it matters, of course. But you know, my tubing, my choice. Right?

Right NOW I don't want to have a fourth kid, but who knows about two or three years from now? But with two crazy boys...
And I'm ALREADY having surgery so I might as well...rather than have to go in for more surgery later if I decide to get it done later.

I just don't know. I think three kids is enough, but what if I'm wrong?

Whatever I decide, I have to make the choice next week.

So huge!

Ugh.
I feel like a giant whale.
I think I'm having a whale baby instead of a regular human baby.

Just in the last week or so my belly has quadrupled in size. Sextupled!
I don't even look in the mirror anymore. Too depressing.
Maternity shirts make me look even more disgustingly huge, so I don't wear them.
I wear my regular shirts (and stretch out the belly!)
A week ago I bought some T-shirts from the Walmart juniors section to wear (and wear out) these last two months. Apparently juniors who shop at Walmart are all 6 feet tall and weigh 97 pounds. All the T-shirts are cut skinny and super long. Not a great look on 5'3" me USUALLY, but the extra length is great for covering up the humongo belly.
And at $6 a pop I don't care if they have to get thrown out in two months.

In other news:
Bob took a job retrofitting a power plant. He started yesterday. He has to be there at 6 am and should be getting home everyday (EVERY day) at around 8 pm. It's around an hour drive to the plant.
Today is day two. He was EXHAUSTED last night. We'll see how long he makes it working seven days a week, 12 hours a day...
It's ALMOST like being a full-time mom. Except, the mom job has no lunch break. But you do get to play bubbles and balloons. Unfortunately, you also play puke and poop and NO I WILL NOT GO TO SLEEP EVER EVER EVER EVER AGAIN EVEN IF YOU PAY ME IN SKITTLES!
That one is my favorite.

Meanwhile, The New Baby thinks it's a great idea to get all bunched up on one side of me and put a foot (or elbow or skull) into my kidney.
Is your liver on the right side? If so, then liver also.

At my checkup yesterday the "let me check your pee for whatever might be in pee" nurse even said "Wow I can see right where HE is!"
Yeah, really??!?!
I can feel him over there too. When he ISN'T bunched up around my right side organs he's flipping constantly and bouncing off my bladder.
ON CUE that baby in there just dislodged from my spleen(?) and flipped across underneath my belly button to my other kidney and kicked my bladder for good measure along the way.

Meanwhile....
Elizabeth's tonsils are healing perfectly, she's almost back to normal voice wise and her sleep apnea is TOTALLY GONE! It was totally gone starting from day one but it's still so amazing to me. Obstructive sleep apnea is the pits. I'm so glad she's not going to have to deal with this EVER EVER again!

The bad news...I peeped a look at Dylan's tonsils during Elizabeth's follow-up with the surgeon.
Oh. My. Lord.
They are giant.
So I guess we'll do round two in a year or so...

Anyway, that's my news...
I'm hugely fat. Bob is working like crazy. Elizabeth has no more tonsils and Dylan probably won't have his for long.
Also the cats haven't killed anything for awhile so, I'm on red alert for huge dead things...the longer they wait, the worse the bloodlust gets, and so on...

Closer and closer and closer

You can see by the countdown over there => that I officially have (as of today) 112 days left in my pregnancy.
With the C-section, it's actually 10 days less, so 102 days.
Tomorrow I will be 25 weeks pregnant, leaving just 13 weeks to go. Tuesday will dawn with me having just 100 days left.
100 days.

That's a little bit scary.

My list of actual things I have to get done is pretty small. Since the baby will bunk with us in our bedroom for a while after he's born, I don't have to worry about shifting the kids around in their rooms until maybe Thanksgiving-ish...
I'm still not totally sure how that's going to work out either...boys together? older kids together? Elizabeth sharing with the baby? Not sure. Not sure at all.
If only we had ONE more bedroom! Gah!
Anyway...
More pressing concerns are:

Potty training Dylan
Successfully moving him from crib to toddler bed
Successfully moving Elizabeth from OUR bed to her own bedroom (she won't love the night feedings, I guarantee it)

Other than that, I feel pretty set. It's not like I've never done this before.
I will be cloth diapering the baby and I've already got pretty much everything I need for that as well. Plus as baby gets older, he'll just take over Dylan's diapers, which is great!

I do have to weed through the children's toys and eliminate perhaps 30-50 percent of what they have currently.
There are some things that they don't play with at all or are too young for them, or just plain annoying that will need to be donated to the Goodwill.
I'm hoping this spring we'll be able to enclose our back porch into a sort of playroom so all their toys can be out there instead of spread throughout the house randomly waiting to be stepped on.
Dare to dream!

Must Have Baby Items

As everyone knows, I am having our third baby this May. I have everything I need for a baby and then some.
But as you may NOT know (or you might) my dear friend Joan is having her FIRST baby also in May.
I've been thinking that my experienced mom and pop readers (and friends) can help me come up with a Must Have list of items that Joan well, must have for her new baby. Also a list of items that are less than necessary, as tempting as they might be.

I know you moms and pops out there have your opinions on this topic.
So tell me and Joan, what baby items could you absolutely NOT live without and what ended up a big disappointment or went mostly unused??

I'll start.

Must Have
Boppy pillow for nursing
Basket full of diapering items for quick changes
When bottle feeding - a bottle brush
When nursing - Lansinoh and a breast pump!
In the beginning - pacifier clips (can't lose em!)
Once you lose the pacis - teethers!!!! and Anbesol
Snap in pillows to support wobbly baby heads in the carseat

Mostly Unused
Diaper Genie, believe it or not!
Those clip on vibrating/music machines for cribs
Those giant carseat covers that wrap over your whole carseat. I always thought they would suffocate the babe :)
Microwave Aveda bottle sterilizer (I used it all the time with Elizabeth, but by Dylan, eh, I got over it)
Newborn sized shoes. Never used them.

OK experienced moms and pops! Now it's your turn!

It's all sinking in...

Yikes! Two boys!
Two crazy boys!!!

I think Anne Marie is right though...There are FIVE Franco boys and her mom is still relatively sane...right??!?!

It'll be good. At least I'll have 6 to 8 months where the new baby can't crawl or move around by himself to get used to having three kids.....

My mom left to drive back home this morning. I'm totally worried with all the storming and winds and crazy weather going on in California right now. Even though she's driving from here to Phoenix and then onto L.A.-ish...she's not going through any snowy wonderlands or anything. But still.
I'm sad too. Having someone to chat with during the day who wasn't under four feet tall was awesome.
Thank goodness she'll be back in May when we have our New Baby Boy!

The Answer Is...

It's a BOY!!!!
Pray for me! Two boys!!!! Egads!


OK. Ultrasound is done.
Baby's gender is in a sealed envelope on the fridge. We're just waiting for Bob to get home from work to open it and find out.

The ultrasound tech said she was 100 percent sure of the gender. Not sure if that's a clue or not.
She did not give me ANY clues whatsoever, and I admonished her for that successful concealment of fetal gender.

Everything else was looking great. Baby has two legs, two arms, two eyes, wiggly fingers and is about 11 oz.

This is officially your LAST chance to register a guess...boy or girl? Phoe-be or Phoe-bo?

The u/s results will be posted later tonight!

Christmas Blur

This last week has been a total blur of presents, wrapping paper and cookies...my GOD THE COOKIES!!!

My mom came into town Saturday with her dog Maggie. The dog is at least 15 years old, so she's slow and low. That is her tempo. She mostly sleeps all day, but my kids adore her shaggy self, so that was an early Christmas present for them!
Sunday we spent ALL day making cookies. Sugar cookies, coconut macaroons, gingerbread cookies, cream cheese cookies...and on and on...it was a Cookie Party! Without that Silverman chick.

Monday was even more cookies to make, and it being Christmas Eve, Bob took the kids to his dad's rural homestead in BFE nowheresville for a lovely Christmas Eve lunch and present opening. They ended up arriving back at home after 6 (well after darkness fell) so Mom and I enjoyed seven fun-filled hours of present wrapping, cookie making, dish cleaning and watching HGTV. Fun fun fun!!
My brother arrived Christmas Eve around 10 pm. The boy runs on his own clock, what can I say. His big adventure was clipping an elk's antler on the way up from Phoenix. In his ex-girlfriend's car! Good times!
Soon after he arrived, everyone went to sleep dreaming of sugar plums and Santa and wrapping paper and cookies...dear Lord! The COOKIES!!

Christmas Day we opened a slew of presents. The most puzzling of which was an Easy-Bake Oven for Elizabeth (she's not yet 4, the E-B O is for age 8+) from my FIL and his wife. Strange. Can I closet it for four years without incident. Perhaps.

I put a turkey in the oven and we awaited the remainder of our company (my BIL and his wife and child). Nice and low-key. While the turkey roasted, Dylan took a nap and Bob and my brother went up to the ski resort to snowboard. Bob used to be an instructor, Greg had never been before. It was about 10 degrees up there. Needless to say, they weren't gone long and it's about an hour drive to get there.
They claimed to have had fun, but we'll never really know!

Everyone else arrived around 3 pm. We opened another round of presents and watched holiday shows while we snacked on hors d'oeuvres (that's OR DERVES).
Then we broke for the evening around 7 pm. My brother left to go back to Phoenix around 6, just after the turkey feast-o-rama.

Since then it has just been hanging out at home, playing with the new toys and going to the grocery store. We're chilling.
There is football to be watched today (damn Patriots!) and a Prime Rib to be made for New Years Eve. Last night we had a big ol brown sugar glazed ham. I think I've gained three pounds in two weeks. Ugh.
At least I can blame it on the blossoming child.
This week is even more fun in store with Dylan's second birthday on Wednesday and my ultrasound appointment on Thursday.

I've just been handed a poopy diapered child, so I guess that's all the update you get for now.
Peace out. Peace on Earth.

Snow...and other stuff

Finally!
And, conversely, ah crap!

It's snowing!
I woke up this morning to about two inches of snow on the ground and it's still coming steadily.
The children, in their infinite wisdom, decided they needed to test the temperature of the snow by running out onto the front deck shoeless. It's 30 degrees outside.
Dylan's feet were as red as Rudolph's nose when he was done.
But, they had fun!

Of course, the snow falling means it is the first official Take the Kids Out in the Snow Day!
I'll spend the rest of the morning convincing them to wait until there is more snow. Simultaneously, I will collect all their snow gear and get it ready for them to hop into once I get up the nerve to take them outside in the freezing cold. Maybe after lunch.

This also means I will have to find my thermal pants. I do not HAVE snow pants. I wear thermals under jeans under my HBC breakaway pants. Yep.
Gotta love it!
The kids have full snow outfits, bib pants, snow jackets, boots, and all the handmade hats, scarves and mittens they can stand. And thermals! They are almost warmer outside than they are inside.
Elizabeth in snow gear looks like that kid from A Christmas Story "I can't put my arms down!"

Bob went to work today and there was already a rollover/slide off the road/We're from Phoenix and don't understand snow driving accident.
This is the first day of substantial snow.
First. Day.
I am not leaving the house for four days. I hate driving in the snow, I am not good at it. I decline.
Last winter, you may recall, I drove off an icy road into a ditch with the children in the vehicle. I could not get OUT of the ditch. My car had to be PULLED from the ditch.
Yeah. We're staying home.

Yesterday, apparently out of concern that we might be starving, the kitties killed a squirrel and brought the carcass inside.
They even had the good manners to serve it to us in the dining room.
Sweet.

Also, last night the belly baby aka NuBabee was swirling around in my belly like crazy.
It was at the same time cool and nauseating, as I'm sure all my mom-readers can attest.

I did a Chinese birth chart today for NuBabee. First I checked the reliability by matching my other two kids to it.
It correctly determined that Elizabeth was a girl and Dylan was a boy. It does this by matching the age of the mother at the time of conception with the month of conception.
According to this chart, I will have another boy in May. We'll see!
Check your kids and post the accuracy!
Chinese Gender Chart

Off to find my thermals. Whoooo!

And now it's really real....

Wednesday afternoon I took the kids into town for some very last minute Thanksgiving shopping and to go to my prenatal appointment.
First off, we get to the OBs office and it's packed with preggos and kids.
PACKED.
Dylan and Elizabeth quickly assimilated themselves into the tribe of children huddled around the giant tropical fish tank. It was already 4 pm on the day before Thanksgiving. Most of the parents in the waiting room were quite tired. The kids got away with a lot that afternoon.
Dylan, in particular, found a girl who struck his fancy and immediately started to hug her and try to give her kisses. She was not impressed. In fact, she was sort of pissed off at him. He didn't understand.
Then he turned his attention to her older sister (maybe 2.5 years old) who was more than happy to return his affections. Ah, young love.
We got called back into the office WAAAAY before anyone else did. I think they were sort of mad about it, but oh well! There's three docs back there, they were probably seeing one of the other two, but still, I can understand their fury.
So the nurse weighs me (I've only gained TWO pounds through the whole pregnancy, almost 15 weeks now!) and leads my entourage back to the exam room.
Elizabeth had to pee, then I had to pee, then Dylan thought he had to pee, but didn't.
Then the kids tested out the exam equipment. Starting with all the chucks and gowns, moving on to the tiny packets of lubricant. I drew the line at the speculum drawer, which now that I think about it, really should be located at a higher level.
Dylan then started adjusting the exam table, legs down, head up, legs up, head down...etc. etc.
Then they found a great light that they were fascinated with until the nurse returned to check me and my pee. (well, that's what they do! Sorry faint of heart!)
My blood pressure was normal, though, I'm not sure HOW!
Dylan fell in love with the exam nurse and started to hug HER leg! He's really quite shy. :)
While Dylan was wooing the nurse, she was trying to pick up the baby's heartbeat with the monitor thingy <= that's the industry term.
It took a while but eventually we found the baby and it's strong heartbeat!
This was the first time we were able to pick up the sound of the heartbeat. Elizabeth was amazed. I almost cried. Dylan continued to paw through the cabinets unmoved.
Then the other nurse came in and wrote a bunch of stuff in my file and palpated my uterus. Not as pleasant as it may sound. I'm measuring right on for my due date, which has been officially set at May 18, 2008. However, because of my prior C-sections and our hospitals anti-VBAC policy, I'll be getting my third C-section around 10 days before that.

Answers to other baby questions:
*Is it a boy or a girl? We still don't know, but will be finding out! Elizabeth talks to the baby through my belly button and says it is a girl, but she's not sure.
*Have you picked a name? No. But Elizabeth has...Fiona Michelle for a girl, Shrek for a boy. I weep for my grandchildren.
*Are you still puking everyday? No. I never actually puked but rather REALLY REALLY wanted to. That horrible feeling has since subsided.
*How great that you're having a spring/summer baby!? Yes, it is sooo great! This will be our first child not born during the middle of RSV season! Although, Elizabeth was nine weeks old when she got the RSV and that puts her four day hospitalization pretty much right in the middle of May, so there are no guarantees for total wellness!
*Will this be your last baby? Right now, we're pretty decided that yes, this will be our last go around.