beanski

eleven months

Is it really a mere 30 days from the little monster turning one year old? As in, we're no longer talking in MONTHS, we're talking in YEARS. I remember going from weeks to months being weird. But this, I don't know what to do with this.

She sprung her first tooth this month and I love how it changed her smile. One little tooth poking out on the bottom and it makes me laugh every time I see it. Teething has not been an overly enjoyable experience for any of us but it hasn't really affected her sleeping through the night, something I am eternally grateful for. You can sort of see her tooth in the picture below. She is worshipping her cellular. Lord help me.

I'm not sure if it is the teeth or that she's just so damn BUSY but she fights her naps with every ounce of defiance in her being. We get to fight for AT LEAST 30 minutes before she caves and it's not like she isn't tired because she IS. She burrows her head, refuses to let me put her down, her eyelids are heavy but she still doesn't want to sleep. T-U-R-K-E-Y. A welcome side effect of this new form of Renee asserting her control over our lives is that her naps are generally at least two hours long which means we are actually capable of getting something done around the house while she naps. Finally! Before this month I was lucky if I got a 45-minute nap out of her.

Renee's version of crawling is a sight to see. She crawls normally on the rugs, as in on her hands and knees, but reverts back to the army crawl when she hits the hardwoods. You know that scene in Ferris Bueller's Day Off when Rooney is running through the school but stops and walks in front of each classroom before busting back into his run? It's sort of like that. It cracks me right up.

She is into throwing everything on the floor as hard as she can. Her signal for I'm done eating is to hang her cup over the edge of her highchair and look at me like, Look at what I'm doing, Mom. I say, HEY, don't you dare... and she giggles like crazy. Then she throws it to the floor with a force just to prove her point. Yes Renee, we know you are the boss. You have spent the last eleven months of our lives making that crystal clear.

The Point is still in full-effect. I'm not sure what I think is funnier, how she wakes up and points at the light the instant I walk into the room or how excited her dad is when he asks her where the plant is and she shows him. He has her pointing at plants, books, kids, lights, trees, boats, bath and clocks and she can distinguish between all of them. We go through the family roll every night before bed and she thinks every kid is Griffin. Where is Sarah? Points at Griffin. Where is Rama? Points at Griffin. We're still working on it. She can definitely say light, Dada, Wawa (her version of Mama) and hi. She says HI when I lay her down to change her diaper. Then she proceeds to point at the light and say LIGHT. She tries to say a lot of other things but they come out sounding nothing like what she is trying to talk about so I'm not ready to put them on her list of words yet.

Where's Mommy?

Where is the TREE?

Her dad went to Ohio for Uncle Colin's Bachelor party over Memorial day weekend and we had a great time, just the girls. We went shopping, played outside for hours on end, bought flowers and looked at one page of about 3,000 books. Reading books these days consists of pulling every last book off of the bookshelf, opening to the first page where mom begins reading, crossing her fingers that we might actually make it to page two and NOPE, Renee rips the book out of my hands, throws it aside (usually over her right shoulder) and moves on to the next one. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to handle the ship solo while Ski was gone but it was really no big deal. Her dad called on the webcam on Sunday and she just about lost her mind. She was pointing at the screen and smiling and saying Da. It was close to the cutest thing ever.

She loves to play with my make-up and stalks the bathroom looking for any trace of where I might have put it. We're pretty sure she's a girl.

One in her crib looking at me like I'm an alien.
 

Some outside pictures, where we spend our waking hours:

 

I think this one is my favorite, just because it is so freaking hard to get a picture of the kid smiling. She's got too much going on to be bothered with smiling.
     

here he is

Our newest addition, Sam, snuggling with his Mommy.

it's a boy!

Griffin has a little baby brother! Annie went into labor yesterday morning and he was born last night. He's CUTE as a button and absolutely PERFECT! His daddy was bragging that he scored a perfect 10 on his Apgar :) Oh, how I love my little boys!

As a side note: Both boys were born exactly four days before their due dates, Griffin weighed 7lbs 3oz and Sam weighed 7lbs 4oz...isn't that crazy?!

Sam Anthony
May 26, 2008 @ 9:37PM
7lbs 4oz
20.5 inches

Forgot my camera (if you can believe it) but my mom has promised to email me a picture ASAP!

lub-dub

I had the pleasure of sitting in the waiting room at the clinic for two hours yesterday so that I could see my doctor for exactly seven minutes. ARE THEY EVER ON-TIME? Like, EVER? If they are on-time once during this pregnancy I will probably go into labor due to pure shock. I forgot to bring something to read and the only magazines in the waiting room were Golf and Sports Illustrated. HELLLLOOOO....this is an OB clinic, you know, where WOMEN go. They don't even schedule appointments for men. EVER. Can I at least get People or Parents or SOMETHING worth my time?

I got to hear the baby's heartbeat for the first time and it was just as amazing as it was when I heard Renee's. The heart rate is in the 160s which is a lot faster than Renee's ever was. I think that is interesting. Oh and this: I gained SEVEN pounds in five weeks. Seeing as how I gained a TOTAL of 23 with Renee, I'm scared to see where this is headed. 

I "got on the list" for weekly progesterone injections so I'm really looking forward to that. They are going to send me a kit to my house. I'm going to sort of feel like a junkie when they show up, I don't think I've ever housed needles before. My conversation with my doctor went something like this:
Doc: "We could show your husband how to do them and he could administer them at home."
Me: "If you think I'm letting him get anywhere near me with a needle, you are sorely mistaken. Have you ever met my husband?" 

So yeah, I'll be making weekly trips in so that a PROFESSIONAL can poke me in the butt with some synthetic form of progesterone in order to coax my unborn child to stay on the inside where s/he belongs until I'm good and ready for it to come out. Which brings me to my last point. She asked if I wanted to schedule a c-section or if I wanted to try VDAC and I am not sure how to answer that question. The purist in me wants to try to have it naturally, the control freak in me wants to schedule the c-section because I can plan around having someone here to watch Renee and it is a known quantity. I know what the recovery is like and I know what to expect, whereas having it the right way would involve me having to learn a whole new process. Then again, we'd probably be home in two days instead of five if I can avoid the c-section and I'm not sure how Renee is going to handle me being gone for five days. What would you do?

Oh, and the SOBs changed my due date to November 26th because all of my ultrasounds had me behind by a few days. Here I go from 13w5d to 13w2d...THE NERVE. I need to go change my floaty baby now.

a new perspective

Ski had a birthday on Wednesday. As did my sister. Happy Birthday, suckas! We sort of thought Sucker 2 was going to make his/her grand appearance but no luck.

To Sucker 2: "Come out, come out, wherever you are!" I said that to Annie's belly when she was pregnant with Griff and her water broke like two hours later. This is no lie. He wanted to come and see his auntie.

Ski wanted to order deep dish pizza and drink beer on his birthday so I called all over town trying to find somewhere that made deep dish pizza and finally settled on Old Chicago. And it was sort of a deep dish pizza but not Davanni's deep dish pizza. Apparently Duluth sucks at deep dish pizza. Anyways, while we were putting Renee to bed, he looked at me and said, "I need to call my mom and dad. I always thought my birthday was all about me when I was little and now I realize how big of a day it was for them too." How cute is he?

To Renee: "Call your mom and dad back when they call on your birthday. That day, more than any other, was life-changing for us. You may think it's all about tea parties and princesses and going out and getting drunk but don't forget who gave you that birthday."

the wagon rocks harder than the stroller

The girl LOVES her wagon and to be outside. She crawls over the the door and tries to climb herself out if we are inside, whining until we take her out. I can't begin to explain to you how happy this new development makes me. I felt like a caged animal all winter long with a baby too little to be outside during a winter that SUCKED big huge donkey balls.

Her dad is leaving me alone with her for three entire days this weekend and while I know that I am perfectly capable of taking care of her, I can't help but wonder if both of us will come out of it alive. And sane. I have my doubts that both will happen as I am out of gas for the day as it is by 6PM and all I do is sit at a desk all day. Promptly at the bell of 6PM, the fetus makes it known that it doesn't want me to forget about that little thing called EVENING sickness and I run for the bathroom trying gag in silence because the little monster is sensitive and gets upset when her Mommy barfs. The days will be fine, I'm sure, but I positively DREAD the evenings. I think the Radio Flyer and the Kelty backpack and I are going to be my BFF this weekend because apparently riding on my back or in a plastic wagon is WAY cooler than in her stroller or in a shopping cart. I will be best friends forever with anything that allows me to tie her down long enough to take a pee and/or cook something for breakfast/second breakfast/lunch/pre-dinner snack/dinner without worrying about her falling down the stairs. Because apparently "our old house just doesn't work for baby gates." At least that is what Ski is TRYING to get me to believe. Does your husband try this crap with you? I mean REALLY, everyone who lives in a house built before 1990 just has to leave it up to fate and hope their kid doesn't fall down the stairs and crack their skulls? Apparently I have STUPID tatooed on my forehead and I didn't even know it. THE NERVE OF THAT MAN.

the goose

My sisters were asking for a picture of The Goose (Elliott's moniker for Miss Lucy). Her eyes are electric. One with the Nuk and one without because I couldn't decide which I liked better. I like her.
 

mother's day as a mom

I spent my first Mother's Day as a mom in the car driving from Mankato to Duluth alone with my little teething Renee (she sprung her first tooth yesterday). The trip down on Friday didn't go so good so I was sad that we were going to spent our first Mother's Day together crying our way down the road for four hours. She must have wanted to do something special for me because she was a little sweetie all day. We stopped and did some shopping to break up the trip and she rode around in her backpack playing with my hair and giggling every time I talked to her. And I got to thinking, this mom this really IS all that it is cracked up to be. There are days, sure, when I want OUT. I want to run as fast I can and never look back and then the little sweetheart crawls over to my feet and tries to climb them. Or she'll go from full-on meltdown to smiling and happy the minute I touch her. She makes me feel special and more loved than I ever have been in my entire life. The love one has for their child is really incomprehensible until you have one and you watch them go from this little helpless blob to a real, live person. So I guess you could say we're even. I love her more than I have ever loved in my life too.

The job front has been CHAOS. First I got laid off and then I didn't get laid off. Then I got offered a different job and now I'm trying to figure out what to do. Having two job prospects is better than zero though, right? More on this later when I figure out which end is up.

dude, let's go bowling

I lost my job today. Or yesterday. I mean, it's 3:23AM, is it still yesterday? I guess it is TECHNICALLY today but if you don't ever fall asleep, does it ever really turn into tomorrow? I guess I almost sort of knew it was coming but the practical person in me kept thinking 'Can they really survive with no programming support?' and 'Would they really do that to me RIGHT NOW when I need my job more than I ever have in my life?' Apparently the answer to both of those was YES. The best part is that I got told by some snag that I've never met over a conference call with FIVE other people on it. The guy that I know locally that SHOULD be sticking up for his people and should have some degree of guilt for the total mismanagement of the last few months DID NOT SAY A WORD. If I run into him at Cub Foods while I'm buying groceries for my kid using FOOD STAMPS I will not be able to restrain myself from punching him directly in the face.

Ski said the only thing he could say to make himself laugh long enough to stop himself from lying down on the ground kicking his feet and crying, 'Frick it, Dude, let's go bowling.' I wonder how much a game of bowling costs because if I can afford it, I sure could use a laugh. Or maybe I'll just go watch The Big Lebowski because something about John Goodman in a bowling alley always makes me feel better.

11 weeks 2 days

I can hardly believe that I am a few days from the elusive 12 weeks mark. For at least the first 9 weeks, time went SO SLOW that each day felt like 10 days and I was sure I would never get here. Then things sort of calmed down a bit and here I am. I dug out my maternity clothes over the weekend and moped about how last time I didn't even need maternity clothes until like 18 weeks. Then I went and ate another piece of cheese. I have been prescribed 'low activity' by my doctor which does NOT mesh with the way that I like to live my life. My gardens and our yard haven't even been raked yet and I'm certain their chances of getting there at any point this summer are slim to none as Ski just isn't a yard work person. I feel depressed about it every day when I get home from work. I want salty, spicy foods that are terrible for me at all times and have really struggled to drink enough water despite my doctor's instructions to drink AT LEAST three times the recommended daily amount because I'm pregnant and nursing at the same time. I ate chocolate by the BAG when I was pregnant with Renee so it really weirds Ski out that I want tacos and/or pizza for dinner every SINGLE night. I have downed at least a few doses of Tums ALREADY, a thought that I shudder to even type. Oh and THIS: MY FREAKING HIPS HURT ALREADY. The baby is like one measly little inch long and weighs about as much a fig and my hips hurt. I mean SERIOUSLY. Where is this headed?

All of this being said I'm starting to get excited about the baby and am so grateful that s/he is still growing in there. When I'm chasing Renee around the house I can't help but think about how much fun they are going to have together and I think they are going to like being so close in age. I think about how I am four years younger than my middle sister and how I always felt so far removed from what my big sisters were doing. It evened out when I got older and now we are all on the same page but it was hard when we were younger. I haven't let myself even consider planning where s/he is going to sleep or what sort of goodies I need to get for the new one because I couldn't bear the though of having to remember what I was thinking if something bad happened to the baby. I'm starting to get excited to start thinking about it.