Doctor's Appointment and a Trip to the Movies

I almost wasn't going to blog about today's doctor's appointment because seriously?  They're getting more and more monotonous and there's only so many times I can say "weight-normal, BP-normal, urine-normal, heartbeat-good.  The end."  Not that I'm not completely and totally, 100% thankful for having a normal pregnancy.  If nothing else, my trip to the hospital 8 weeks ago taught me to be thankful for it.  But now that I'm getting down to the wire I have to realize that this very well could have been my last doctor's appointment and then I would would beat myself up later for not having blogged about these minute details.  I'm extremely doubtful that I won't be seeing my doctor at least a couple more times during this pregnancy, but you just never know.  

I should have gone to the doctor on Monday, but seeing as how it was Memorial Day, the appointment ended up being today instead.  As I said, everything was good, Garrett went with me, probably for the last time.  At each appointment, my doctor asks me if I have any questions and I seriously cannot think of anything to ask.  I feel like I should have a list of questions, but I honestly don't.  We've already discussed the issues that I've wondered about and, at this point, any other question I might consider asking would just result in him guessing as to the answer.  Of course he has no idea if I'm going to go into labor early or how much the baby will weigh.  It would just be speculation on his part, so I don't bother asking.  Though today I did ask him, once he starts doing internal exams (which could be at my next appointment), would he want to induce me if I was showing progress.  When I was pregnant with Garrett, at my 39 week appointment I was dilated 3 cm and we scheduled my induction for the following week.  I was curious if something similar would happen this go around.  And he basically answered yes.  He did say the hospital does not encourage inductions before 39 weeks if you're not dilating, which I wouldn't want to be induced if I wasn't making some sort of progress on my own, so that's not a problem.  But he did say if he checked me and I was 4 cm, he would send me to L & D and get things started.  Though I would probably request to go to the hospital the following morning rather than heading straight there from his office.  

So that was basically my doctor's appointment.  At the next one, I will be exactly 38 weeks, so I feel pretty sure that will begin the internal exams because I know that's when I had my first one when I was pregnant with Garrett.  I know us women usually avoid being examined internally at all costs, but at this point in a pregnancy, it will be a welcome examination.  Weird, I know.  I have been having the occasional contraction combined with the usual Braxton Hicks contractions but nothing painful or consistent.  They do take my breath away, but not because they're painful.  It's hard to describe.  The way everyone outside of my family talks, they're all expecting me to go into labor anytime now.  I don't think it will happen early, but that's just my take on it.  

After the appointment, Garrett and I went to see "Up", the new Disney Pixar movie that came out today.  I felt bad because Garrett missed his last day of school which is Splash Day where the kids get to play in wading pools and slip n slides, but I knew I couldn't handle sitting outside for all of that unless I was allowed to sit in one of the pools and that probably wasn't going to happen.  We went to the very first showing at our local AMC theater, got a bucket of popcorn and a large Coke to share.  It's so nice that he's almost 4, I don't feel quite the guilt of allowing my almost 4 year old to drink Coke, as I would a 2 year old.  I was surprised by the number of people at the movie at 10:00 am on a Friday when school hasn't let out for the summer.  And there was only 2 other preschool kids in the whole group, the rest were teenagers and adults, which I found odd because if I had a choice, I would have seen something not animated.  

I didn't know anything about this movie beforehand and the little that I had seen about it, it looked strange, but I figured it would be the better choice between it and "Night At The Museum 2", though I'm sure Garrett would like that one too, he liked the first one.  I won't give anything away about the story, but I will say I was not prepared for it and there were several moments that caused me to tear up and a couple of others that I was outright crying and trying not to make any noise and be the weird lady crying during a cartoon movie.  I would love to hear from the rest of you once you've seen it to see if it was just my crazy hormones causing me to cry or if it really did have moments of sadness.  I will definitely confess to the hormones being a little crazy right now.  I just finished a book that caused me to cry many times and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt those parts were not sad in the least.  

Garrett Stuff

It's so frustrating when something happens that I would like nothing more than to blog about it, but if there's even the slightest chance that the other person would read this, then I just can't do it.  I don't think this person even knows I have a blog, much less reads it, but I still can't do it.  I'll just say it's in regards to breastfeeding and leave it at that.  And all (2) of the men who read my blog are breathing a big sigh of relief.  But I promise it's more about the breastfeeding vs. bottlefeeding debate than anything else. OK, I'm done.

And since I'm posting a blog, I just have to share something funny that Garrett did yesterday.  We were outside and he was drawing on the driveway with sidewalk chalk.  He drew a family portrait and narrated for me as he drew.

"This is Daddy.  He's a big giant."  And he drew a very tall stick person.

"This is Momma.  She's so cute."  haha  I know the only reason why he said that is because Keith randomly asks Garrett "Isn't Momma cute?"  

"This is Cooper.  He is teeny tiny."  And he drew a dot.

"This is Garrett.  He's a big boy."  And he drew a short stick person next to my average-looking stick figure.  I tried to take a picture with the camera phone, but the drawing was half in the shade, half in the sun and I haven't thought to take another one until this moment.  

Yesterday I installed the infant car seat in the SUV and Garrett immediately told me I had done it all wrong because it was facing the wrong way.  I explained that babies face the back of the car and big boys face the front.  But he still thinks I did it wrong.  Nothing like being told how to do something by a 3 year old.

Baby Shower #2

I almost don't want to post this and I wouldn't if it weren't for the fact that I want it documented for myself and I know my mom will want to read about it.  

This afternoon was our baby shower at Keith's office.  These people absolutely spoil us rotten.  They did it when we got married, they did it again when we were expecting Garrett, and they've done it yet again with Cooper.  Keith has worked for the same CPA firm for the past 10 years and knows pretty much everyone.  While he's probably not the easiest person to work with (total speculation on my part), he's definitely a hard worker and pulls much more than his share of the load.  I know he's also pretty patient with his staff and does his best to train them well so they can do a good job.  I say all of this to say that seeing everything we were given yet again, they obviously do care about him.  That's always really cool to learn about your husband and his coworkers.  

A few weeks ago, Keith told me that I needed to go do a baby registry because the women doing a baby shower for us wanted one.  I really didn't want to do one.  I felt odd seeing as how we already have one child.  But she insisted, so I sucked up my pride and headed to Babies R Us.  I only registered for about 30 things, mostly items that we borrowed from my sister and sister in law when we had Garrett and were going to have to buy at some point because we won't be able to borrow them this time.  I did not expect to get even half of the items off the registry, even though they bought us a ton of stuff when we were expecting Garrett, I just wasn't expecting that much for boy #2.  

I obviously set my expectations really low.  I probably have about 5 items left on my registry after this baby shower.  Seriously, they almost completely bought us everything we registered for.  The way his office does baby showers is that all the employees who are interested contribute money to one pot and then the hostess/hostesses go out and buy as much as they can with the money contributed.  Occasionally there will be a few people who will buy items on their own, and we had 2 people at today's shower who had purchased their own gifts to give us, both of which were personalized and so awesome and sweet.

So a quick rundown of the shower.  I hope this doesn't come across as bragging or whatever the case may be.  I'm just seriously in shock from their generosity.  The cake was very cute, it was a bunch of cupcakes that were all iced to look like the sky with a stork on it and Cooper's name across the top.  As I mentioned in a previous blog, our digital camera totally died on us, so I only took a couple of pictures with the cell phone, one was not of the cake.  But I know at least one digital camera was present at the shower, so hopefully they will share their pictures.  We also had yummy punch.  Garrett inhaled his cupcake and punch and was chomping at the bit to start opening presents.  I had explained to him what kind of presents we would be opening, so he was prepared for the fact that nothing would be overly exciting for him, he was just thrilled to be able to open presents.  The first one that he opened was a package of diapers and he said "Yay diapers!"  He was genuinely excited, so that was a good sign.  The drawback to having your 3 year old help you open shower gifts is that it only takes about 5 minutes because he tore into them like it was Christmas morning.  Keith and I kept trying to slow him down without evoking a huge tantrum, but that didn't really work.  I just methodically made my way through each gift in order to show it to everyone as well as express my appreciation for each item.  But I think we were done opening presents in 15 minutes or less and there was a lot of presents to be opened.  

The rundown of gifts included:

a baby bath tub

a bouncer chair

an exersaucer

3 packages of diapers

a big box of wipes

many pacifiers

bibs

burp rags

a baby monitor

a backpack carrier where you can carry the baby in front of you or behind you

a boppy pillow

sippy cups

a couple of outfits

an Elmo hooded towel (so cute!)

2 crib sheets

a handmade baby quilt with a baby pillow that has "Cooper" embroidered on it!  Totally awesome

a diaper bag with "Cooper" monogrammed on it-also awesome!

a $50 gift card

I hope I'm not forgetting anything.  I really was surprised and so thankful for all the gifts and the fun time we had seeing Keith's coworkers.  Garrett hadn't been to his office in a couple of years, so it was like a brand new place to him.  Keith's office has one wall that is entirely floor to ceiling windows that look over the plaza where there are a lot of shops and restaurants and an ice skating rink.  I stay far away from these windows, but Garrett apparently has not inherited my fear of heights because he immediately went right up to the windows and pressed his forehead to them in order to look directly down the 11 stories.  It makes my stomach churn just thinking about it.  He said he wanted to jump into the pool (ice skating rink.  It looks like a pool from that high.)  Keith's boss's office has the same view except he also has a door that opens onto a balcony that overlooks the same area.  Thankfully he did not let Garrett go out there because that boy would have given me a heart attack.

Unfortunately Keith had to stay at work after the shower because he's swamped with the current project he's working on, but he helped wheel all the gifts on a big cart from their office down to our SUV.  I waited at the curb with the gifts while he brought the vehicle down from the parking garage (city life is just so different than what I'm used to).  Once Garrett goes to bed, I'm going to take some time sort through all the gifts and catalog them all in Cooper's baby book.  I brought a notebook to the shower in order to write down all the gifts and their givers, but seeing as how the majority of the gifts were from the group, it will be easy to sort through everything for thank you notes.  

If by some random chance, one of Keith's coworkers is reading this, thank you so very much for your generosity!  You have no idea how much it means to us and we really are appreciative.  And I promise I'll get that thank you note in the mail to you ASAP.  

Holiday Weekend Recap

I feel like we were able to get a lot accomplished this weekend.  If for some reason I go into labor this afternoon, I will feel like everything is done.  Except for the vacuuming.  But maybe I can muster up the energy to get that done when I get off here.  

On Sunday morning, we went to church and the preschoolers who attended VBS last week performed the songs they had learned.  At first, Garrett wasn't too sure he wanted to do it, but when I explained they would be going on the stage to sing, he said he was ready.  My child has some kind of switch that flips on as soon as he's in the spotlight.  He actively participated with the singing and hand motions.  

I really wish I could post a video or a picture or something to show it, but our trusty digital camera decided to completely die on us when we tried to take pictures.  It has been showing signs of having some issues, but we were always able to turn it off and turn it back on and it would start working again.  But on Sunday, I turned it off and on 100 times along with giving it a couple of smacks for good measure, but nothing worked.  It would turn on, but the screen was black and when we took a picture, it was just a black screen.  But I had some other pictures on the memory stick that we were able to see just fine, so who knows what's wrong with it.  It's 4 years old so we're just going to replace it, but I really would have hoped it would last a little longer than that.  I guess I should be happy we discovered this now rather than in the delivery room right after Cooper's birth.  

After the service, Garrett went to Sunday school (where he decided he had issues with being left in there, ugh, I don't understand kids sometimes.  One week he's thrilled to go, the next week you would think he was a visitor who had never attended SS or our church before.  Even though he's been going since he was 3 months old!)  Keith and I went to a breakfast for parents of preschoolers which was fun.  I was expecting doughnuts, but we had eggs, sausage, hashbrowns, pancakes, biscuits, juice, etc!  It was very yummy.  Then after breakfast we went to the church's petting zoo which was for all the kids who had attended VBS.  Garrett got to ride a pony, feed kangaroos, goats, sheep, a llama, and a calf.  He also pet a duck and a camel and saw a monkey.  We could have pet the monkey, but monkeys are gross in my opinion, so we just looked at him from afar.  Then we topped off the petting zoo with a jump in the bounce house and stopped off for a Happy Meal on the way home.  He had a full morning!  I do have some pictures of the petting zoo on my phone, but since I'm still learning the new phone, I'll post them later.  I'm very impressed with the cameras that our new phones have on them!

On Sunday night, Keith and I watched "Taken" after Garrett went to bed.  It was a really good movie!  It will definitely keep you from allowing your teenaged children to travel abroad on their own.  Up until Sunday afternoon, Keith wasn't sure if he was going to have to work on Memorial Day or not.  He's in the middle of this huge project that is supposed to be done by June 1.  According to him, he could work 24 hours a day between now and the first and it still won't get done, but he was going to go in to work on it if that's what he needed to do.  After discussing it with his boss, they decided that the a/c probably wouldn't even be on in their building, so there was no point in them driving in to work in the heat.  So Keith called his staff and told them to enjoy the holiday.  

Of course Garrett slept terribly on Sunday night, taking forever to fall asleep, coughing non stop when he was sleeping, waking up as soon as the cough meds/inhaler had worn off, then deciding at 5:30 yesterday morning it was time to get up.  What an enjoyable start to the day off.  We insisted he lay down until 7:00, which he did, but he did not do so quietly.  Once we were up and dressed, Keith headed up to the attic to start bringing down the rest of our baby equipment.  I did not realize how much we still had up there!  I took the bigger pieces out to the driveway and hosed them off while Keith washed our SUV and Garrett alternated between playing golf (he's becoming a noticeable lefty when he golfs, but his toy clubs are for righties, so that's an interesting game to watch) and standing on the fringe of the water that Keith or I were spraying from the hose.  Then he would complain that his feet were wet and he needed to change his shoes.  His croc shoes, that were meant to get wet.  I pointed out that I was wearing flip flops and my feet and shoes were soaked.  He's the kid who begs daily to go to the beach or go swim in a pool.  I mentioned that if we go to the beach he will get his feet and shoes wet, so he said he doesn't want to go to the beach anymore.  

We all got cleaned up and headed to our friend's house for a cookout which was a lot of fun and the food was yummy.  She made homemade pudding for dessert, which I loved!  We came home and Keith painted a wall in our living room that we had spackled and textured last week, but hadn't had the time to do the actual painting.  I alternated between grilling hamburgers, cutting Garrett's hair, and attempting to keep him out of the paint and away from the wet wall.  I would have kept him outside the entire time, but it was pretty hot out there and he had already spent a lot of time outside so his skin was looking a little red.  I wanted to be sure he didn't get a sunburn.  He woke up this morning looking a little browner, so I'm thinking he has my skin tone because Keith was pretty red this morning after the time we spent outside, whereas I don't even look like I was outside.  Which isn't a good thing because I would like to go to the hospital with a darker shade to my legs than Casper-white.  We topped off the weekend watching "Mall Cop" last night which was funny.  I like Kevin James, especially in the movie "Hitch".  He wasn't quite "Hitch" funny, in my opinion, but it was still good.  

Last night I enjoyed waking up to a horrible cramp in my calf.  I had to get up and walk around the house until it finally worked itself out.  Then it did it again this morning!  I hope that's just pregnancy related and not old age related.  

Now I'm off to finish up some things in Cooper's room.  And hopefully get my floors vacuumed, just in case.

My All-Time Favorite Blog Format: The List

• I decided on going the Bath & Body Works route for my shower hostess gifts.  It was too hard trying to come up with something specific for each lady and I don't even know the women Keith works with.  So I picked them all up a gift package from B&BW on Thursday.  I also bought Garrett's teacher a gift for putting up with him all year.  She'll probably have him next year too, so I want her year to end on the best possible note.
• Cooper's room is almost finished!  I only have one more wall to hang things on and the items to be hung either need to be painted or are still in a container in the attic.  I also have a trash bag in there full of things that need to be hauled to Goodwill.  Then I want to buy a cushion for a straight-back chair that I have in the corner of the room and I'm trying to find a small area rug to cover up some spots on the carpet that Garrett lovingly contributed to the room during his 3 year stay.  Once all that is finished, I just need to put the sheet on the crib and tie the bumper pad around the edge.  I promise I'll take pictures when everything is complete.
• For the past several months, Keith and I have been increasingly frustrated with our cell phones.  They're going on 2 years old and the batteries are shot.  We could only talk for maybe 10 minutes at a time before we needed to charge them again.  So today we headed to the AT&T store to check out new phones.  It's always fun to get a new cell phone and I'm really enjoying mine so far.  Keith said he was afraid I would go into labor and not be able to reach him because his phone battery was dead.  So hopefully that won't happen now.  
• I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that as of today, I only have 30 days until my due date.  So in 30 days or less I will be the mom to not one, but two boys.  I do consider myself as already having 2 kids, but it's pretty easy to take care of them when one is inside my belly.  Garrett asked me the other day how Cooper gets a drink in there.  The easiest way for me to explain that was just to say that anything I drink, Cooper gets to drink.  It's hard to explain concepts like that to a 3 year old.  I'm really hoping I don't get the question "How did Cooper get out of your belly?" once he's born.  

(One of) My favorite part about pregnancy: Nesting

My "to-do" list has shrunk considerably in the past week.  I'm not sure why I've felt so productive, but it has really paid off in getting things accomplished that needing doing before bringing home a new baby.  Just this morning, while Garrett was off to VBS, I got much needed groceries, which included things needed to pack my hospital bag, and once I finished putting away the groceries, I got started packing our bags for the hospital.  I know I still have about 4 and a half weeks until my due date, but on Sunday, at my baby shower, my friend Shari (who is also a doctor) kept making little comments here and there about going into labor early.  I don't know if she has a second sense about these things, or what, but she had me itching to get these last few things accomplished just in case.  

So in the past month I have: completely reorganized the cabinets in both of our bathrooms, the cabinets in our laundry room, the spice/medicine cabinet in the kitchen, the linen closet (where we keep exactly no linens, but rather games, puzzles, craft supplies, office supplies, miscellaneous junk), my closet and Keith's closet, and I can now cross off my list "pack hospital bags".  I'm not counting the work that's been done in Garrett's room, and Cooper's room is still a work in progress.  Though I do have his closet somewhat organized, the crib is put together, the curtain is hung, and I have some of the baby clothes sorted into size piles.  

Next on the agenda is to thoroughly vacuum Cooper's room, move all the furniture, hang everything on the walls, wash his clothes, then pack his diaper bag for the hospital.  Assuming I don't go into labor early, I plan to give each room in the house a thorough cleaning in the last couple of weeks leading up to my due date (and my mom's visit.  Not that she cares about the state of my house, but I still don't want her showing up and immediately getting to work on cleaning.  Garrett has lots of plans for her as it is.  They involve going to the beach-yeah, I need to explain to him that isn't going to happen-, watching movies, eating popcorn, and going to McDonald's where he'll actually be allowed to play inside rather than going through the drive thru like I prefer.)  

That's basically where things stand right now.  It's hard to believe that as of this Friday, I will be exactly one month away from my due date.  I'm continuously trying to look ahead to see if I can predict what I will need to buy or take care of after Cooper's born, so that I can attempt to do those things ahead of time.  Does that make me sound a little crazy?  I've already bought part of Garrett's birthday presents, along with all the birthday party supplies and his birthday isn't until August.  (By the way, Garrett has seen one of the presents already because I have it in the top of my closet and he asks about it regularly.  Where do you parents hide presents?  My spot used to be in our guest room closet, but that doesn't exist anymore.)  The only other thing I'm drawing a blank on, is what to buy Keith for his birthday, which is in July.  I've used up my good ideas for Father's Day, so I'm not sure what we'll do when July rolls around.  Maybe something will come to me in the next few weeks.

Our Weekend

Saturday was a rainy day around here, so we spent the majority of the day at home.  I finished organizing my closet and we worked some in Cooper's room.  When Garrett took his nap, Keith and I watched "Fireproof".  I honestly only watched the movie because I kept hearing people talking about it and I wanted to be able to say I had seen it.  But it was a really good movie.  I would highly recommend married couples, or couples who have plans to marry, to watch this movie.  It gives you a lot to think about and consider when you're talking to or dealing with your spouse.  I could turn this into a whole blog about how to treat your spouse, but I'll refrain.  I will add that one of my all time favorite books on marriage is "Love and Respect".  I would highly recommend this book.  I have the "Love Dare" book that was used in "Fireproof", but I haven't read it yet.  I can assume that it's every bit as good as "Love and Respect", just a different format with a challenge to complete each day, whereas "L & R" is more of a general way to treat your spouse and relate to them, along with a good reminder of the differences between men and women and what we want from each other.   

Yesterday I had my first baby shower.  It was a small group of girls that I teach in Sunday school and their moms.  It was fun and relaxing.  I was given several cute outfits, some blankets, diapers, wipes, and a teether.  My favorite was from my friend Shari who hosted the shower.  She gave me a Ralph Lauren polo shirt for Garrett and a matching polo onesie for Cooper.  They will be so cute for pictures!  I can promise you will be seeing them many times until Cooper outgrows his.  She sent me home with the cake leftovers and 2 plates full of fruit.  Garrett was thrilled to see the "birthday" cake (as he calls it), but I only let him have a very small piece because yesterday he complained of having a stomachache and he had the signs of having "sour stomach".  I really don't know what causes that or why he would have it, but I was careful with what I let him eat in case it made a repeat, but thankfully nothing happened.  This morning he told me his stomach still hurt, but I hope it will start feeling better.  Beginning tomorrow, our church is having a preschool-only Vacation Bible School.  It will be Tuesday through Friday for 3 hours each morning.  I know Garrett will have a lot of fun going, so here's hoping this stomach issue is resolved today.  (I'm looking forward to a few hours each morning to do some work in Cooper's room, I must be honest.  Garrett only has another week or so of "school" and then I'll be doing the final touches on Cooper's room and the house with him "helping" me.)

Yesterday we went through the Dairy Queen drive thru because I was craving onion rings (they were out of them!!  How is this even possible?).  On our way back home, we stopped at the gas station to full up my SUV.  Garrett said "What's Daddy doing?" and I told him "Daddy's putting gas in Momma's car.  He's a stud."  Garrett said "Daddy's a spudge."  For some reason that just made me laugh so hard.  I don't think Keith found it quite that funny.  

I Need Your Gift Ideas!

I need some ideas.  I have a few baby showers coming up and I need some ideas for hostess gifts.  When I was pregnant with Garrett, I think my hostess gifts were things from Bath and Body Works, though I'm having a hard time remembering exactly.  I know I can always go that route and most women like and appreciate things from there.  But I thought I would pick your brains and see if you all had any cute ideas.  My first shower is this Sunday and I realize that I might not have a gift to give that hostess on the day of the shower.  I know she'll understand and won't care, and probably isn't expecting anything anyway, but if I can find something between now and then, I would like to do so.  So if you have any cute (relatively inexpensive) ideas, then I would love to hear them!

On a side note, I just have to confess that it was a little awkward for me to register this go around.  In fact, I wasn't planning on doing so, except for the incessant insistence by Keith's coworker who is throwing us a shower at his work.  With Garrett, we had nothing, so it was easy to register for all things baby.  We were beyond blessed with the baby showers we had with him.  But there were a few things we borrowed from my sister and Keith's sister after Garrett was born.  As it turns out, both of them have new babies right now and are using all of their baby items, so I did register for the things we borrowed from them last time, along with a few things that needed to be replaced.  But it was still awkward for me.  Maybe I wouldn't feel this way if I was having a girl.  

And Baby Makes 3

As I get ever closer to my due date, I've been thinking back on my pregnancy and the birth of Garrett.  So in order to keep my 2 pregnancies and labor experiences separate, I thought I would jot down what I remember from Garrett before I go through labor and delivery again and start confusing what happened with which child.  While I have no plans of being overly detailed with this post, I do want to give you the opportunity to exit out before I get started if labor and delivery "stuff" isn't your thing.  

My pregnancy with Garrett was pretty similar to this one.  I found out I was pregnant about a week before Christmas in 2004.  I have exact dates for all of this written down in a "What to Expect When You're Expecting" calendar, so I'm not going to drag that out to remember.  With Garrett, we were not quite to the point of being ready to have a baby when the second line showed up on that test.  We were both a little surprised, to say the least.  I cried, mostly because I didn't know how Keith was going to respond when I told him.  So I waited for him to get home from work, we ate supper, and then I sprang the news on him.  He looked at me in shock for a few minutes and didn't say much for the rest of the evening.  It took awhile, but we both adjusted to the idea and got excited about having a baby.  I only had one bout of morning sickness, beyond the random moments of nausea, and for the most part had an easy pregnancy. 

I taught school throughout the majority of my pregnancy.  Months 7 and 8 were during my summer break, so I was able to spend that time finishing up Garrett's room and doing a lot of relaxing and soaking in the cool air.  I do remember constantly feeling hot when I was pregnant with him, which could have had something to do with the fact that he was born in August, the absolute hottest time of the year in Texas.  My brother got married in south Texas about 8 weeks before Garrett was due and I know I froze Keith to death on the drive down and back for the wedding, and that's no small feat.  

3 weeks before my due date, I had to start the new school year.  I walked into my classroom for the first time after being gone for 2 months to discover all the furniture had been moved around and (worst of all) there was no a/c!  In August!  For some reason, the a/c was out in my room and the room next to me for the entire 3 weeks until I left for maternity leave.  I think I had 3 or 4 fans in there to try and make things bearable.  The most fun though was moving all my furniture back to where it belonged.  I wasn't worried about going into labor while moving everything because I was ready to be on maternity leave, but let's just say it was interesting trying to move a 4 drawer filing cabinet across my classroom while being 9 months pregnant. I was able to get my substitute set up and ready to start the year off for me and then my maternity leave started.  I remember going to my last doctor's appointment on my first day of maternity leave and telling him that I was so ready to be done.  Turns out I was dilated to 3 cm already so he said he would induce me the following Monday.  

My family was only 5 hours away at this time, so they drove up that weekend.  Monday morning, Keith, my mom, and I left our house between 5 and 5:30 am because I had been told to be there by 6 am.  At 8 am, my doctor came to the delivery room and broke my water.  Initially I had very mild, inconsistent contractions, so at 10 am I was started on pitocin.  Once this got in my system I was definitely feeling uncomfortable.  My doctor came back to check me at noon and I remember thinking to myself "If I'm 7 cm or more, I'm going to try to do this without an epidural."  I was 6 cm.  So I told the doctor to bring in the anesthesiologist.  Keith left at this point to go to lunch.  He had no desire to be in there while I was getting the epidural and I didn't want him in there.  My mom stayed and helped me to breathe through the contractions while the epidural was being put into place.  I made sure that, while I couldn't feel my legs, I could still move them.  I didn't want too much of an epidural, just enough to keep me comfortable.  By this point, I had visitors who wouldn't have dared come in the delivery room pre-epidural, but now felt comfortable enough that I wouldn't take a swing at them since I was medicated.  Throughout the afternoon, when my doctor would come in to check on me, he would say "This baby has a big head!"  And I would say "You're scaring me" to which he would respond "You're scaring me!"  

The further along that I got, the worse I felt.  First, I had to throw up.  It came on me all of the sudden and my mom was just barely able to shove a bed pan in my face before it happened.  Then, after an exam, I began feeling very light headed.  I told the nurse I thought I was going to pass out, so she brought out an oxygen mask and made me lay on my right side.  At this point, Garrett's heartrate was starting to drop, so they moved me around until I was in a position that kept his heartrate at a level that looked good.  5:30 pm rolled around and the nurse came back in to check me.  She said it was time to start pushing, but we were going to do some practice pushes so I could get a feel for it.  Once she felt like I was ready to push for real, she called the doctor and started disassembling the room.  Atleast it felt that way, lights pop out of the ceiling, the bed is broken down to be in a better position for delivering a baby, all sorts of equipment and people showed up to take over with the baby once he was born.  My doctor showed up with someone he was training and I started pushing.  I remember hearing my mom say "I see his head!" and a few more pushes later he was born at 6:30 pm.  The cord was wrapped around his neck twice which explained why his heartrate was dropping earlier.  He also had a conehead and a lot of bruising on his scalp, so the doctor wasn't kidding when he had commented on the size of his head.  

The rest of our hospital stay was relatively uneventful.  Garrett had jaundice so we ended up staying in the hospital for an extra day so he could spend time until the lights to try and bring down his levels.  Since we went home over Labor Day weekend, which means that our doctor's office was closed, we had to go back to the hospital every day to have his jaundice levels checked.  It was NOT fun holding down a newborn to get his heel pricked.  

It took us awhile to get into a good routine once we had him.  I never knew how much of an adjustment it would be to have a baby.  Now I feel like I'm a little better prepared for Cooper, simply because I've gone through this once.  I know there will be plenty of other new and different experiences with him that will still take time to adjust to, but atleast I now have an idea of what it will be like.  I have to say that I'm more than ready to move on to this next phase and it will be here before I realize it.

Doctor's Visit and Mother's Day

Getting the boring stuff out of the way, my doctor's appointment this morning was, again, the basic stuff.  Everything looked good, Garrett was well behaved, and I'll see the doctor again in about 2 and a half weeks.  After that appointment, it will be a weekly visit till D-day.  Hard to believe we're already at this point!

My Mother's Day weekend was greatness!  Keith had been asking me periodically what I wanted for Mother's Day and most of my responses had to do with spending time together, either just us, or the 3 of us as a family.  (My Love Language is Quality Time, with a good dose of Acts of Service thrown in there, in case you couldn't tell.)  And Keith enjoys quality time as well, but I guess he figured that he also should get me something tangible, so he kept hinting around trying to get me to tell him something I wanted.  I really couldn't think of a specific item that I was needing or wanting, so I wasn't much help, but from the things that he said I suspected he would be getting us a new TV for our bedroom.  

We're one of the few families in the US who do not have cable or satellite and instead watch our TV via antenna (not bunny ears or tin foil, by the way, but an actual antenna that we've put in our attic rather than on the outside of the house.)  What this means is that when all the TV stations switch to digital signals next month, the TV in our bedroom will be rendered obsolete.  Yes, we can buy a converter box that will make it work, but this TV is 19" and 10 years old, that I had in college.  I should confess that it has a nice, melted spot on top of it where I had a lit candle sitting on it back when I was in college and the candle melted all the way down and the candle holder got hot enough that it melted a hole about the size of a silver dollar in the top of the TV.  It looks lovely.  And this TV does not have the ability to be hooked up to a DVD player, so really, we'd rather have a new one.  (Just FYI, the antenna picks up digital signals, so our living room HD TV works perfectly fine.  There's no way you can tell that it's coming through an antenna except for the smaller number of channels.  And hey, it's free!)

OK, back to the topic at hand.  I assumed a new TV was in the works, so I was excited.  On Saturday morning, Keith and Garrett headed out to buy my gift and run some errands.  Garrett had told me the night before that I was getting a necklace for Mother's Day, so I had no idea if he had heard this from Keith or if he was just making it up.  He has the knack for saying things with such conviction that you assume it's the truth, but that isn't always the case.  While they were gone I was able to clean the kitchen and mop the floors, along with organizing the cabinets in our laundry room.  It was a productive morning.  (And yes, I'm nesting.  Thank you for asking.  Or as Keith said the other day I'm "building my nest".)  

Keith and Garrett came back a few hours later and Garrett ran in the house shouting "Surprise!  Happy Birthday!".  He had his holidays a little confused.  Then Keith walked in with a Nintendo Wii.  I was thoroughly surprised.  We had talked about getting one last Christmas, but never did and I think that was the last time it was mentioned.  Keith is not into video games.  They don't really appeal to him, so I know this was bought solely with me on his mind, which makes it that much sweeter.  It took a little work to get it hooked up, Keith was thoroughly impressed with my electrical engineering abilities.  He sat back and held a flashlight for me while I dug around in our cabinet to get everything connected.  

Once everything was hooked up, I turned it on and proceeded to set up our family Mii's.  That was hilarious.  Garrett kept saying "That does NOT look like Momma!" or Daddy or Garrett.  I told him we were just doing the best we could.  I was going to name myself Lydia, seeing as how that is my name, but Garrett insisted my name was Momma, so that's what I went with.  My how life changes when suddenly I'm the Momma in the game instead of that designation being given to my own Mom.  I bowled the first game and once Garrett saw what it was all about, he took over.  He's spectacular at pitching, terrible at batting, takes a lot of work (and a sweet forever) to bowl a full game by himself, along with being a pretty good boxer (provided he's paying attention to what he's doing and not attempting to play some unseen game with the joystick on the nunchuck controller.)  Keith bowled one ball for Garrett and once he discovered that you actually have to go through the motions of bowling and that the sensor picks up how fast or slow you roll the ball, he was pretty impressed and will probably play a little more frequently.  But so far he hasn't actually played a full game of anything yet.  I was excited when my sister told me that I can download the original Super Mario Brothers to play.  I LOVE that game!  And Keith was excited when I told him we can download the internet channel and surf the web on the TV.  He's always wanted to be able to do that.  Now he wants to know if they sell some sort of computer mouse-type controller so that he can feel like he's on the biggest computer ever.  

  

Right now we just have the basic Wii package with the Wii sports game, but eventually we'll add another controller or two along with additional games.  I'm excited to get the Wii fit because I've heard a lot of good things about that.  It will go into my workout rotation once I'm no longer pregnant and actually working at losing weight.

I will briefly share the rest of our weekend now that I've rambled on (for 16 pages, FRONT AND BACK.  Name that show!).  After playing with the Wii, we went and ate lunch at Jalapeno Tree, which is a local Mexican food restaurant chain.  We had never eaten there before and it was ok.  I've had better Mexican food, but I've definitely had worse as well.  We took Keith's mom some flowers for Mother's Day and visited with his family for a bit.  (I sent my mom flowers too for those who were wondering.)  Then on Sunday we went to church and had lunch at Baker's BBQ afterwards.  Garrett spent most of the afternoon outside with Keith while Keith fixed the a/c on his truck and Garrett played.  I mostly relaxed inside.  Then we noticed Garrett's eyes getting red and puffy so he came in because apparently he's allergic to something outside right now.  He took a shower and some Benadryl and went to bed a little early.  This morning his eyes still look a little red, but not as puffy (and by red, I mean underneath his eyes are red, not his eyeball.  He's always done this with allergies, but they've never swollen up like they did.)  This morning I gave him some Children's Claritin and that seems to be working even better than the Benadryl.  After he went to bed, Keith mowed our yard, which was another Mother's Day present for me, as far as I'm concerned.  He had spent all day outside working on his truck and then proceeded to spend more than 2 hours on the mower because he knew the tall grass was bugging me.  

I hope all the other moms out there had a wonderful Mother's Day!  It's so nice to feel appreciated.  I'm going to have to be sure we celebrate Father's Day early because this year it falls the day before my due date and I would feel badly if we end up spending it in the hospital or with a newborn, so we'll have to celebrate the Sunday before.  I already know what I'm going to get for Keith, I would post it because he never ever reads my blog, but on the off chance that he might over the next couple of weeks, I'll keep it a secret.  But as far as he's concerned, what I'm going to get him will be every bit as exciting as a Wii, so I can't wait to see his reaction!  (And Keith, if you are reading this, no, it's not a '69 Camaro.  Sorry!)

Garrett's Room

I've intended to post this for atleast a week now, but I'm just now getting around to doing it. My apologies for those who were waiting with bated breath. haha

As I've explained before, Garrett moved out of his old room and into what used to be our guest room. In the move, I've attempted to reorganize Garrett and all his things in order to keep his toys from overtaking our house.

Unfortunately, I don't have a good shot of our former guest room on this computer, so here's the next best thing. Right around when Garrett turned 2, he discovered our board games in the guest room closet and had a grand ole' time playing them following his own rules and mixing and matching game pieces. So here's a shot of him in the room before it became his bedroom.

During the moving process, while Keith was painting, Garrett was "helping". Such a good helper, don't you think?
And now here's the finished product. I know that a lot of kids' rooms have cute murals and wonderful paint schemes, but I just don't have that talent, or that kind of time, so we stuck with refreshing our current paint color and then went with a generic Disney theme. Garrett is a big fan of a variety of Disney movies so I couldn't pick just one. This made it easier to just go with several that he currently likes. It won't be hard to change it up when his interests change, as we all know they will.

This picture was taken from the doorway. Garrett wanted to be included in the shot. He still has a John Deere pillow on his bed (which was his nursery theme) because he loves that pillow very much. I'm on the hunt for a similar pillow except with some sort of Disney character on it, but I haven't been successful so far. Unless I go with Hannah Montana, but I doubt Garrett or Keith would like that very much. In case the posters aren't self-explanatory, one is from the movie "Cars" and the other is from "Toy Story 2". Garrett loves to set up all his Toy Story characters to look like they do in the poster. The rug on the floor is a "Cars" rug with a road to drive cars on. I would really like to find a different bedskirt than the one currently on his bed because I would prefer a blue one rather than green, but that's way down the bottom of my list of things to do.

This shot was taken from the window looking towards the door and the closet. I'm still deciding if I want to rehang the wooden letters that spell "Garrett" and if I do, they will go above the clock. So right now that wall looks a little bare, but at this point, I'm happy with it. I love the hot wheels organizer on his closet door. That has been such a help in keeping his cars organized. Inside the wooden toy box are all his musical toys and big trucks and cars (no small toys to prevent something getting lost). Inside the baskets are miscellaneous toys and I've got several other baskets in the top of his closet with more miscellaneous toys and I switch out the baskets periodically so he doesn't get tired of the same toys, but also to keep from having every single toy he owns out at once. It's really helping to keep his room clean and the rest of the house from getting too cluttered with toys, since we don't have a toy room or a play room.

This picture was taken from the corner by the closet door. One poster is from the movie "Monsters, Inc" the other poster was totally Garrett's choice. I knew I wanted one more, but couldn't find another poster that wasn't a ridiculous amount of money, so one day we were looking through the Walmart posters (flipping quickly through the scantily clad women posters) and they had 3 Spiderman posters. He's a big fan of Spiderman's right now, so I told him he could pick one to hang in his room. I figured he would pick one of the 2 that had just Spiderman on them, but instead, he picked the one with every Marvel comics character on it, with Spiderman standing in the front. He asks me all the time who they all are (there's probably a hundred or more in the poster) and I can only tell him 2 or 3 that I recognize. So any comic buffs out there are welcome to come by and name those characters for us.

In the picture, Garrett is watching a worm that's crawling down the wall, hence the reason why he's not looking at me. We are currently having issues with little inch worms getting in our house. Garrett loves watching them and playing with them. Yes, he's all boy and no, I don't encourage the playing part, but I have to be honest and say that I've heard "Hey, Momma, the worm is riding on Thomas!" many times in the past few weeks. (Thomas being Thomas the train, for the uninformed.) Back to the picture, the train table was free, given to us by some awesome friends who were cleaning out their kids' rooms before Christmas, so we keep all his Geo Trax train equipment inside of it and a few of the bigger pieces on top of or underneath it. His Thomas train set either stays in the living room for a few days at a time or it's in a container in the top of Garrett's closet. I couldn't tolerate having both train sets out at the same time, it's too much of a mess.And the final picture. One shot of his closet. Something that sold me on our house is that all of the closets are walk-in, so there is more to it than what you can see, but it's almost impossible to take a good picture of a walk-in closet, as I discovered the day I was taking these, so I'll just stick with this shot and be done with it. The drawback to our house is that the 2 kids' bedrooms are on the small side, so in order to maximize space, I've eliminated dressers and use the closets to their fullest potential. I bought this hanging organizer from the Lillian Vernon website on clearance for $10. I keep Garrett's underwear in the top slot, his socks in the second slot, miscellaneous stuff in the third slot and then his shoes go in the smaller slots. Most of them are empty right now because most of his shoes are on the floor of the laundry room where we also tend to keep our shoes that we wear frequently. In the basket on the shelves in the middle is where I keep Garrett's pj's. The shelf below that are a couple of Garrett's throw blankets. Being a former elementary school teacher, I have a ton of kids books. Garrett would get them all out at once and make a mess if he could, so that's why the 2 top shelves have books on them. Inside the closet and to the left, is a small, plastic organizer with more books on it that he can reach. His hamper sits next to it. To the right, inside the closet, is one of those blow-up punching bags that stands about 4 feet tall, and a wagon full of Mega blocks. All along the top shelf are baskets of toys, a container of sheets that fit Garrett's bed, a box of memorabilia that I've saved so far for Garrett, and a container for Thomas and his train tracks.
And that is the tour of Garrett's new bedroom along with my attempts of organizing him and his stuff. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I'll be able to post something similar from Cooper's room. Today, I put the mattress in the crib. I think the only thing left to do is to hang the curtain, vacuum, then move all the furniture where it belongs and hang everything on the walls and it will be finished. I organized his closet last week. It's a little more chaotic than Garrett's because of the baby equipment and baby toys that will be stored in there until needed. With Garrett, we didn't get a lot of that stuff until he needed it (like a potty chair), but now we have to have some place to store it and his closet is the most convenient one.

Tomorrow I have yet another doctor's appointment, so I'll post about that later along with my Mother's Day. It's been wonderful and my husband bought me an awesome gift!

Does anyone besides news anchors actually call it H1N1 instead of Swine Flu?

I had plans for today.  Plans that included going grocery shopping all by myself which would include doing some early birthday shopping for Keith and Garrett.  Then coming home to a quiet house where I would rest some and clean some before picking Garrett up this afternoon.  

Those plans came crashing down last night with 2 words "Swine Flu".  Thankfully not in my house, but in the local school district.  With swine flu comes the closing of the school district and with the closing of the school district comes the closing of local daycares and with the closing of daycares comes the closing of Garrett's Mother's Day Out program.  The one I so look forward to each week.  So now we're at the beginning of 2 full weeks of Garrett and Momma time.  Yes, I know that the end of this month will mean the beginning of a full summer of togetherness, but I had hoped for some alone time between now and then.  Thankfully I will get a week or two after this break and before school is out, so I'm trying to look on the positive side.  

The downside to this is that with the swine flu entrenched in the DFW metroplex, it really cuts down on the places I would willingly go and allow Garrett to contaminate himself.  Indoor play areas are out, the zoo would be ok if it didn't require lots of walking on my part (though I may talk Keith into taking a day off and going with us and we would take lots of breaks), parks are ok though we really don't have all that many in our area that are worth going to, and the library is out, unless we just run in and out without stopping in the play areas and with wiping down kids' books with Clorox or Lysol.  

Now, I'm really not a big germophobe, but the last thing we need in our house is any sort of flu virus right now.  Not swine flu, bird flu, regular ole' human flu, whatever the bug might be.  I don't want it being 8 months pregnant and I certainly don't want to deal with a 3 and a half year old who might catch it (nor do I want to deal with a 32 year old who might catch it).  So I'm doing what I can to avoid it, short of locking ourselves in the house.  

This morning we did get groceries (though I did not do any early birthday shopping.  I bought one of Garrett's Christmas presents when he was with me this past Christmas and he NEVER forgot about it.  He asked about that stupid train every day until Christmas.  So he is definitely too old to think I can hide a gift in the cart and he won't notice it.)  When we walked into Walmart, I immediately pulled a ziplock baggie full of Clorox wipes out of my purse and proceeded to wipe down the entire cart before Garrett touched it.  Garrett insisted that he needed to ride in the front of the cart instead of sitting in the basket, so I wiped down the seat belt and handle extra carefully.  Then I would periodically pull out my Purell while we were in the store and wipe down our hands to be extra safe.  I felt a little OCD, but oh well.  Maybe we'll manage to avoid this flu.  

I do think that the government and health departments have taken this a little out of hand, but I'm going to assume they know what they're doing and attempt to do my part to keep us flu-free and healthy.  I wonder about being in the hospital next month when Cooper's born.  I really hope this flu scare is over with by then because I don't relish the thought of being in the hospital during a "pandemic".  Even though the maternity ward is in its own building at our hospital, I still wonder about the visitors or workers that might be there.  As well as what kind of protocol we would have to endure just by being there.  Will we have to wear masks at any point?  Will they monitor our visitors and the number of people allowed to come and see us?  I'm perfectly ok with anything they might impose, mostly because I do not want to contaminate my newborn in any way, but it does bring up a lot of questions.  Questions that I will be asking my doctor, and he will love every one of them I'm sure.  

The next 2 weeks will be loads of fun.  I hope to get Garrett's room straightened up so I can take pictures of it now that everything is done in there!  I'll be posting those as soon as I'm able.  Cooper's room still has a ways to go, but we did manage to get the crib set up over the weekend.  Garrett wanted to take a nap in it on Sunday.  Let's hope the newness of all the baby equipment will run its course quickly.