Who turned up the tantrums?

Wow. I think in the last week alone something has taken over my child and flipped the volume switch on his tantrum level. It used to top out in the fingernails-on-chalkboard level of annoyance, but now it's to the point sometimes where I want to poke out my eyeballs...

I'm glad I got pregnant well before this stage, because let's just say I wouldn't be too keen on it right now while witnessing the full force of a 22-month-old throwdown in timeout. Yikes.

My MOPS group was discussing the various roles moms take on this morning and which were our favorite and least favorite. I have to say that hands down, at least right now, I really don't enjoy the disciplinarian role at all. Of course I know it has to be done, but it can be mentally exhausting sometimes to fight battles constantly.

But I do love my Jack to bits, and I know this season will pass. My sister mentioned she saw a real difference in the level of tantrums in her daughter around 3 1/2 to 4 years, so the countdown is on :)

The countdown shortens

I went in for my 37 week check up and ultrasound this morning and got some good news...the countdown until baby Anna arrives has been shortened a bit!

My doctor did a few measurements during the ultrasound to estimate her weight, and the calculation came back around 8 pounds as of today. Technically I've still got a little under three weeks to go, so that would make her very close to 9 pounds (Jack's weight) if she was to come on or around her due date. Of course the ultrasound estimate can be off by half a pound, but either way, she should be a nice healthy size. My doctor even said she had chubby cheeks from the ultrasound picture, just like her brother! I'm not really sure how she could tell anything from that ultrasound image though...I could barely make anything out.

So we're looking at an induction date of Monday, November 3rd if she doesn't come on her own before then (and assuming the hospital has a free bed in the maternity ward that morning). Instead of 17 days, now we're looking at only 10!! Whohoo!

I've been procrastinating on getting my hospital bag packed, but this news is providing a much needed kick in the pants. Bob has joked around that I should at least be able to manage adding one item a day, but even that has been a struggle for me the last week. It just seemed like with Jack I brought way more than I really needed, since I spent most of the time in a hospital gown anyway. The one item I will not go with out (they were the first item in my bag) are my beloved Jolly Ranchers, which were a lifesaver when I had Jack and couldn't eat or drink anything. Hopefully I can have them at this hospital too! Anybody else have any favorite must-haves for the hospital?

Top 10 things not to say to a pregnant woman

Ok, there are many more that could be added...enjoy!

10. Any labor horror stories, especially for a first-time mom. I was pretty lucky here in that most of the women I talked with when I was pregnant with Jack were very encouraging and positive about their labor experiences, but I've had friends who have heard some doosies.

9. "Get as much sleep as you can now, it will be worse after the baby comes." Not really that bad, but it just gets a little old. I'm not intentionally depriving myself of sleep as often as possible just to see what it feels like, trust me. I love walking around like a zombie!

8. "Was she/he an accident" or "Was she/he an oopsie?"-Ok, you can maybe get away with this with a close friend (depending on the definition of "close"), but never just an acquaintance and certainly NOT a stranger. I would say "unplanned pregnancy" is a better choice of words than "oopsie" any day!

7. "Watch out, wide load ahead!"-I got this one walking down a pretty narrow hall down in our old church in Virginia. Guess I wasn't waddling fast enough for the traffic behind me....

6. Any phrase with the word "rotund" in it, even it's preceded or followed by some form of the word beautiful/lovely/glowing, etc. I assure you that any other positive comment does not even register with the pregnant woman if paired with rotund. Note: This was from the same person that made the wide load comment, and while I typically avoid gender bashing, I'll leave it to your powers of deduction to figure out which sex it came from.

5. "Please don't go into labor on us now!" I got this one back during Ike after walking into a Chick-Fil-A (and I'm sure it was well-intentioned). It was made all the worse though because I was no where near close to going into labor, which was just another unneeded reminder of how big my belly already was. And believe me, as much as I love the outstanding customer service at Chick-Fil-A, I have no intention of going into labor there.

4. "I'm beginning to see the weight gain in your face."-Ugggg is all I can say here. Again, I assure you that pregnant women are well aware of every square inch of weight they've gained.

3. "Cankles are sexy." I'm happy to say my husband has never uttered anything remotely close to this despite the days when you couldn't tell where my feet stopped and my calves started. You take your ankles for granted until a little thing called swelling hits in the second or third trimester...

2. "How far along are you? ______ weeks. Oh, you're only ______ weeks along?" One of two implications follows:

1. "Geez woman, time to cut back on the ice cream!" OR
   
2. "Geez woman, are you starving your kid?"

Neither of these options are really good, though I guess I would tend to prefer the implication of looking smaller, but I know this is really touchy too for some moms. Both imply some level of abnormality, and no pregnant woman needs any additional ammunition to feel more abnormal or unlike her usual self than she already does. Raging hormones, achy joints, sleep-deprivation, and this little person using your insides for kickboxing practice already do enough in achieving this goal.

1. As the due date approaches, any form of "Still no baby yet, eh?" or "You're still here?"-I got the "You're still here?" a number of times at the end of my pregnancy with Jack when I kept showing up at church on Sunday mornings (I wasn't even past my due date). Ok, remember when I said that a pregnant woman is well aware of how much weight she has gained and where she's gained it? Well, the only thing a pregnant woman is MORE aware of, especially by the last few weeks of pregnancy, is how much time she's got left until the due date. She, more than anyone else, is 110% aware of the fact that the baby has not been born yet. No reminders are necessary.

Getting Excited!

So I've been sitting here for the last 30 minutes with probably the biggest, goofiest grin ever on my face looking through old baby pictures and movies of Jack and getting more and more excited about meeting baby Anna here in a few weeks (or any day she wants to come). It is truly amazing how much our kids age in only a few years!

Anyway, just thought I'd post a few younger pictures of Jack...I wonder if Anna will look anything like him? I remember being excited to meet Jack too, but I had a lot more of the anxiety about labor, losing sleep, nursing, etc. than I do this time, so I feel like I've been able to really look forward to meeting this little one.


Zoolander anyone?

Future Yell Leader?

Yes, I CAN be a fair-minded momma when it comes to that other school...although I must say the look on his face in this picture says something like "You just put WHAT shirt on me?" Please don't go to that tt school though Jack (I guess I'm not as fair-minded as I thought).

I can name that tune in five words...can you?

A tale of two nurseries

So now that I'm approaching the Anna-can-come-any-time-she-wants point, my to-do list has suddenly taken on a new urgency. I had been meaning to snap a few pictures of her nursery for a while now, but after a few showers her floor was littered with diaper boxes and clothes that needed to get put away (and did thanks to my Mom).

We've also since gotten the carpet replaced in our master bedroom closet, which I mentioned a while back will be Anna's new room for a while after she gets home, mainly so I don't have to climb stairs in a groggy state a bunch of times during the night to nurse her. So the pack-n-play is now set up on one end and ready to go for her! Still need to move a glider back there though...

Anyway, it is quite the tale of two nurseries when you see the pictures...the master closet is bland and undecorated, her nursery upstairs is colorful, etc. I went with the green and purple after I bought some plain green drapery panels along with Anna's furniture and just went with a flower theme to keep things simple and not too baby-ish. Hopefully we won't have to change much for a while as she gets older going this route, but who knows!

Thanks to my sister-in-law Kate (the other Kate Looney) for helping me the right shade of green!

Pretty crib...
Not so pretty, but functional crib....

Bummed and not so bummed

I was looking forward to my last ultrasound today at about 37 weeks, but unfortunately (for me at least) my doctor had run to the hospital next door to deliver another one of her patients, so I had to settle for the regular ol' visit of a trip to the bathroom, check of blood pressure, and listening to Anna's heartbeat. It was tough for the nurse to find today because she was squirming all over the place!

So I was a little bummed that the ultrasound got bumped back until next week, but I totally understand why of course. The good news was that I had somehow dropped 2 pounds from my last weigh-in...how does that work?? I figured I must have had some extra water weight the last time I got weighed that wasn't there today. I remember yo-yo'ing back and forth with gaining and losing weight the last 4 weeks with Jack too. At least that made up for some of the disappointment of not doing the ultrasound :)

24 days and counting...unless I get scheduled for an induction earlier!!

The importance of trusting your nose

Well, we thought we got through Hurricane Ike with pretty minimal damage (and in comparison to other people on our street, we really did), but just discovered another little "present"that Ike left behind a few days ago.

Bob and my dad had finally gotten the siding put back up and the stray shingles blown off the roof nailed back down on Monday evening. We thought we were in the clear now that the house was back in order and the refrigerator/freezer were more or less restocked to their pre-Ike levels. Funny thing was, every time I would walk back in our master bathroom, something just didn't smell quite right. The trash had been emptied and the bathroom cleaned, but I still kept getting whiffs of something that was NOT there before.

Of course my immediate thought was to look upwards to check for water damage since we had had some shingles blown off...maybe there were some on the other side of the house that were missing and we didn't know it, which had allowed some water to seep down somewhere. Didn't see anything unusual though when I looked around the ceilings in our bedroom and closet, so the mystery remained, that is until Bob picked up a pair of his shoes in our master bedroom closet and discovered a nice layer of mold all over the soles and on the carpet underneath where the shoes had been sitting. Yuck!

That explained the smell for sure. I kept thinking it smelled something like mold, but because I couldn't see the mold anywhere, I wasn't sure. The nasty stuff was hiding in a very small area of our master bedroom closet along the front of the house, probably where some water had gotten blown in around the window or somewhere else. We didn't notice any damp carpet because the only area that was still somewhat damp was behind and under a large chest of drawers. Once we moved the chest and saw the faint beginnings of mold on the baseboard by the window and some green stains on the carpet where Bob's shoes had been sitting, it became quite apparent we found our smelly culprit!

The next step was to decide what to do...since it was a pretty small area, should we just bleach the baseboards and steam clean the carpet, or rip the carpet completely out? Well, it didn't take us long to realize that we would never feel 100% comfortable with Baby Anna sleeping back there if we didn't completely replace the carpet. That first sneeze or cough she utters would cause me to second guess even the best steam cleaning job!

So Bob has spent the last few days ripping up the carpet and pads, bleaching the baseboards and floor where the moldy carpet was hiding, and is now off getting quotes to have someone come replace the carpet. I wish I had been more persistent in finding the cause of the moldy smell so we could have started this process a little sooner. Bob even said he thought something had smelled funny too, but for some reason we didn't say anything to each other about it. Ahhh, the breakdown in marital communication, the subject of another post....should've trusted the ol' nose a little more!!

Got any more hidden presents, Ike?

One of those pictures

You know those times when you take pictures of your child (or children) and then when you look at the picture you think, "When did you grow up so fast?" Well, this is one of those pictures for me!

It's finally gotten a little cooler at night, so we decided to try Jack's new long-sleeved, dino pajamas on for size and they fit him pretty well! Bob grabbed the camera and snapped a few shots, and when I saw this one I kept thinking, "Where has my little boy gone?" I think he's hit a growth spurt lately, or maybe it's the nice smile he has on his face, but something about it made me proud and a little sad at the same time to see him getting bigger!

Too much pink!

My wonderful sister and mom hosted a baby shower for me this past Sunday, and let's just say the theme was pink, pink, and more pink! I guess that's what happens when you have a little girl, huh?

I am still slowly adjusting to this new world of pinks and purples after almost 2 years of looking at various shades of blues, greens, grays, and reds. It's a nice change for sure, and little girl clothes sure are a lot more fun to shop for! A few of the shower gifts included some little bows for her hair. I set them up in Jack's bathroom (or should I say the kids' bathroom) after the shower and they looked so out of place next to all of Jack's pirate toys! Of course if Anna is anything like Jack, she won't have much hair to begin with anyway...

My sister did a great job of planning some games, including one where everyone had to draw a picture of baby Anna on the back of a paper plate while the plate was perched on top of their heads. It's not as easy as it sounds to draw something that even remotely resembles a baby this way, as evidenced by many pictures with limbs detached from the trunk of the body. Let's hope baby Anna doesn't really look like that!! My 90+ year old grandmother actually did one of the best drawings...she's simply amazing :)

I've avoided taking too many pictures while pregnant for obvious reasons, but figured I should get a couple now while I still can. I tried to find one I took at about the same time with Jack for comparison, but can't seem to find it amongst all the pictures we have on the computer now. Anyway, I think my new nickname should be "The Belly", kinda like the supermodel Elle McPherson (or however you spell her name) is just known as the "The Body".

Overall, I had a lovely time, thanks again to my friends and family for making it a special time! I'm sure baby Anna would thank you too if she could break away long enough from using her mom as a punching bag :)

No Britney belly for me

Like most other women out there, I enjoy going shopping for new clothes, just not maternity clothes. It's hard for me to spend money on something I know I'm only going to wear a short time before they either get donated to a friend or put into a box to store for the next child (and we don't know which will be the case yet).

I had been doing so well in stretching my non-maternity wardrobe as long as it would last, and then when that was no longer an option, I was content to just wear my maternity clothes over and over again. Well, while we were staying in Austin after Ike came through, it quickly became apparent that I was going to need more maternity clothes...not because I was tired of what I was wearing or because I didn't pack enough clothing, but because suddenly only one of those shirts was still completely covering my belly. And frankly washing that one shirt over and over again each day was enough to motivate my tired bum to pay the mall a visit for some additional clothes. No way was I going to start imitating Britney Spears at 8 months pregnant.

Ok folks, the blog has officially hit a new low with that reference...

Anyway, I decided for the sake of comfort and anticipated belly growth that I would go ahead and buy a size larger than I usually wear with the hope that this would be my last maternity shopping spree. This worked well for the shirts, not so well for the pants. The belly band in the pair of pants that I bought feels great, but the legs themselves are so large that they rival the MC Hammer pants from the early 90's. Oh well, comfort is the name of the game at this point!

*************************************************************************************

I moved all of the clothes in our master closet to one side of the closet to start preparing to put furniture in there for Anna. And yes, it's ridiculous that I can put everything in that closet (including a chest of drawers, a file cabinet, and paper shredder) to one side and still have the whole other half of the closet free. We've also finished the nursery more or less, so I'll try to get some pictures put up this weekend of both rooms.