Belly Shot - 13 weeks

OK, friends, I thought it was time to show off my great big belly! We're at 13 weeks and 1 day, but I measure more like 22 weeks - which I'm sure you can believe from the picture!

My growing belly doesn't really bother me except when I consider that I still have almost 6 months to go...will I still be able to walk??

Itsy-Bitsy Spider - Condensed Version

There are times I wish I had a camcorder constantly fired up & ready to go. Wendy was sitting in the high-chair this evening, waiting for her Daddy to come clean her up, when she started singing this song:

(while trying to do "spider" hand motions)
Bi pire
Bi pire
Bi pire

(making a big sun over her head)
An da sun...

("spider" motions again)
Bi pire
Bi pire
Bi pire

YAY!!! (clapping)

Happy Thanksgiving

I thought I'd take a minute between making the Strawberry Pretzel Salad and mixing the filling for the Pumpkin Roll and share a few thankful thoughts.

This year I am especially thankful for:

• James. I have been so sick with this pregnancy that my contribution to our daily household management has been negligible. James has picked up the slack and kept us fed, clothed, and cared for, all while working about 50 hours a week. He's a keeper.
• Wendy. She brings so much life and laughter to our house! She keeps us busy, and her big blue eyes watch the world so carefully that it makes us pay more attention, too. I'm especially thankful that she's old enough now to say her bedtime prayers. ("Thank you, God. I love you, God. Night-night, God. Amen.)
• JellyBean. Even though JellyBean has turned my world upside-down and made me sick on a regular basis, seeing that heartbeat & that kicking on the ultrasound makes it all worthwhile. I can't wait to meet you, little JellyBean!
• Home. Our home is not luxurious by any American standards, but it is more than we need or deserve. The fact that we can just walk into our kitchen & have clean water at the turn of a knob is amazing. The fact that we can sleep warm & safe every night is a great blessing, one I never want to take for granted.
  

Testing

We had some basic testing done for the baby yesterday - a Nuchal Translucency Test and a corresponding blood test. These are screening tests for certain birth defects, and we should have the results after Thanksgiving. We're not at high risk for problems, but it would be better to be prepared if there are special health concerns for our baby.

The tests went well, baby was very cooperative, and we finally got a pretty good picture:


There's baby's profile! I really enjoyed getting a chance to see baby's face, and to watch him/her swallow & wave. He/she was a bit quieter this time, so the pictures were easier to take! We were also able to hear the heartbeat for the first time - nice and strong and fast!

I can't wait until we have our "big" ultrasound in mid-January. We should find out then whether we're having a boy or a girl, so that I can stop saying "he/she" and "his/her"!

Cafe Preggers

We always have just what you want, at any stage of pregnancy - from the queasy beginning to those last weeks when the baby has taken up every ounce of spare room in your belly.

First Trimester Menu
Appetizer
Tums compote
Entree
Fresh Saltines on a bed of Saltines, lightly seasoned with Saltines
Beverage
Ginger ale (IV drip available upon request)
Dessert
Ten minutes in a dim room with an ice bag on your head

Second Trimester Menu
Appetizer
Half a roast chicken, extra crispy
Entree*
A succulent leg of lamb smothered in pork chops, served with BBQ ribs and garnished with cheeseburgers (all burnt beyond recognition for your safety)
Beverage
Toll House pie smoothie, prepared with 1/2 pint heavy cream
Dessert
9" x 16" pan of double-fudge brownies

Third Trimester Menu
(Each course followed by 15-minute neck massage and/or bathroom break)
Appetizer
Three bites of tossed salad
Entree
Two bites of lasagna
Beverage
None - so you'll have room for dessert
Dessert
A Tic Tac

*Double portions available if you're expecting multiples

(by Melissa Balmain, from babytalk * mom-to-be magazine, Fall/Winter 2008)

Happy Holidays!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Just so you know, we don't ordinarily let Wendy dance around with pitchforks...

Fashionista

Wendy wanted to play dress-up today in a new and different way. She put on a necklace, put a bracelet on her upper arm, decorated her belly with yard-sale stickers from the junk drawer, and then brought me assorted bows & clippies to put in her hair.

Here's the result:


I think the penguin jammies really tie it all together.

Techie Questions

For Mother's Day this year, James shocked me by getting an iPod classic. I've wanted one for a couple of years, since we don't have a good stereo. I had such fun importing all our CDs and making playlists with different themes.

My iPod classic is the 80GB version - enormous storage capacity. Which leads me to a few questions:

1. How do I load photos on my iPod? There's got to be a way to do it, because there's a "photos" option on the menu.
2. Can I download clips from YouTube? How? I'd love to get some of Wendy's favorite clips on there for entertainment at doctor's offices and such.
3. What's the easiest way to play an iPod in the car? Our van has a CD player, but no iPod dock or anything like that.

I hope some of you can answer my questions. I've been Googling my little heart out, and haven't had much luck.

WFMW: Best Holiday Dish

When holiday dinners are being planned in my family, I know one thing I will be assigned to bring: Strawberry Pretzel Salad. It's crunchy, creamy, salty, tangy, sweet, and wonderful. If you've never tried it, you should - take it to your next holiday gathering, and you'll be a hero.

For more great ideas, head over to Works-For-Me Wednesday at Rocks in my Dryer.

An Unscientific Poll

I'm just curious - how often do you shave your legs during the cold-weather months? We all shave quite often during the spring & summer, when capris & skirts fill our closets...but what about when it's cold outside? When you wear long pants for months on end?

I'll confess...I barely shave at all during the fall & winter. It's just not worth it. I'll shave for my OB visits and the rare special occasion or date night, and that's pretty much it.

So spill it - do you keep up with it, or let the stubble grow into fuzz?

And Amy, you're exempt from answering - you're a newlywed. :-)

Projects

In roughly 6 months, JellyBean will make his/her arrival. On one hand, that seems like a loooonng time from now, but with all the things I want to get done, I know time will fly. We have a large bedroom upstairs that we've been using as storage since we moved here. We want to convert it into Wendy's bedroom/playroom. Several things need to happen in order to accomplish this:

• weed through storage stuff & get rid of as much as possible
• find another way to store the stuff we want to keep
• remove defunct chimney from the middle of the room
• patch hole in roof from defunct chimney
• build shelves on either side of the window
• paint
• new carpet
• move Wendy's stuff upstairs

That's a pretty substantial list. The first 4 items will be the most complicated, especially finding somewhere to store things. We've been working on paring down our belongings, and this will be another time to get rid of a bunch of stuff.

One thing I wonder about, though, is the Christmas stuff. Where do you store your tree & decorations & wrapping paper & stuff? Do you have any hints for me??

Blog Design Giveaway

There's a fantastic giveaway going on over at Ruby and Roja - for an entire year worth of blog designs! Go here to enter!

Writer's Block

So much for NaBloPoMo...

It's Hard to be Two.

From Wendy's room, I hear pitiful cries of, "More waher, peese! More waher, peese!" I might actually take her seriously if it wasn't punctuated by random singing. She's supposed to be going to sleep - it's way past her bedtime.

Two is a hard age, apparently. I know (oh, BOY, do I know) that it's hard on the parents, but apparently it's quite tragic for the child. Only true, deep anguish could cause the kind of drama we see on a daily - no, hourly - basis around here.

The most common thing we hear from her these days is, "Oh, NO!!" Usually when she says this, something truly heartbreaking and profoundly sad has happened. Like the cat jumped off the couch. Or Momma dropped a book. Or the "Elmo's World" segment on Sesame Street is over.

I've heard that three is a very dramatic age. If it's worse than two, we're really in for a rough time!!

WFMW: Coping with Morning Sickness

If you have read my blog at all lately, you know I suffer from persistent, all-day-long, awful morning sickness. Some days are better than others - some days I can successfully fight it off and eat almost normally. But some days...some days I know that I'm going to lose the battle; it's just a question of when.

On those bad days, I do a few things to help me cope with the sickness. Some of them are probably common sense, and some may be TMI, but in any case, here they are:

• Pull back my hair. I don't want to worry about hair dangling in my face when I'm getting sick. Pulling it roughly up into a clippie helps a lot.
• Dampen a washcloth to have at the ready - if I have time.
  
• Have an empty bladder - again, if I have time. Because pregnant lady + full bladder + violent vomiting = could get messy. Ew.
  
• Use a trash can/bucket/whatever, not the toilet. Curling up on our freezing cold bathroom floor & caressing our questionable toilet is not fun. It's so much nicer & more comfortable to sit on the toilet or on the edge of the bed & use a trash can.

I've probably lost some readers forever for posting something like this...but if it helps anyone out there, than it's worth it.

For more great (and hopefully less gross) tips, visit Shannon at Rocks In My Dryer.

Printer Giveaway

Hey - Blissfully Domestic is giving away an Epson Artisan 800 wireless printer! Read more for details.

I would LOVE this printer because it would make it so easy to print out the pictures that are trapped on our hard drive! It's wireless, too, which is just awesome.

Suffering is the Mother of Sympathy?

When I was pregnant with Wendy, I had the great fortune of not experiencing a cold.

Not so, this time. I'm ten weeks pregnant, and I have a cold. Sore throat, incredible sinus pressure, and unbelievable mucus production. Yuck.

And so, from now on, I will be MUCH more sympathetic when a pregnant friend gets a cold. Because trying to limp through on Tylenol & Sudafed? It's not much fun.

At least The Office was good.

Yesterday was not my best day.

I've been trying to get away from the whiny, complaining rut I had fallen into - it's so easy to get in that mode, especially during the first trimester, especially when you have a blog where you can write whatever you want. I've been trying to broaden my focus, move on, and write and talk about bigger things.

And then, Wednesday night, I forgot to take my Unisom. If I had any doubts that the Unisom helps with my nauseousness, those doubts are now erased. I won't give you the gory details, but I will say this - I think, in all of yesterday, I managed to keep down 5 apple slices and 2 saltines. (You have no idea the grossness I've just spared you - I typed three or four sentences here & deleted them, thinking, "Nah...that's just TMI.")

James took Wendy over to spend the night at her grandparents' house, because I was feeling particularly weak & puny. I took my Unisom (you better believe I took it!!) and was asleep by 9 p.m. I had about 10 hours of sleep last night, not counting all of the getting up to pee, and I'm feeling MUCH better this morning: still a little weak, but my stomach feels perfectly settled, and I'm craving pumpkin bread.

If you're the praying sort, I'd really appreciate some words on my behalf. That I would feel better very quickly, and if not, that I'd figure out a way to deal with the sickness without becoming incapacitated. Thank you!

Genius

If you know my husband, you know he is intelligent. Very. As a fairly intelligent person myself, it's sometimes hard to admit that he's smarter than I am in several areas. He's a mechanical engineer, an occupation that suits his personality and type of intelligence perfectly.

His latest brilliant idea involves Wendy sleeping in a "toddler bed." You may remember that we gave the toddler bed a try back in July, and it worked for about a week. Then we had to deconstruct the toddler bed & change it back into a crib, and it's been that way for the last four months.

When we were told at the doctor last week that I'm not supposed to lift more than 20 pounds, my thoughts immediately went to getting Wendy in & out of the crib. She's 30 pounds. There's no way to get her in & out without lifting her pretty high.

Enter my brilliant husband. Instead of messing with deconstructing the crib & converting it back into a toddler bed, he just took the front off. The front panel is leaning up against a wall in the living room. If Wendy is bad & gets out of bed, the panel gets put back on & she gets a scolding & we explain to her that she has to sleep in a baby bed since she can't be a big girl.

It works great! I've had to put the panel on three times in the last week, and those times were when her schedule was off & she was having a hard time anyway. She's adjusting quite well to her toddler bed, hasn't fallen out once, and is proud to be a big girl!

Now if James can just figure out a way to make potty-training painless & quick...

(James & Wendy about 14 months ago)

Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble...

...and that's just in my tummy. Yuck.

In other news, I had a really, really strange dream during my nap today. I remember from being pregnant before that the hormones make me have very vivid, detailed, convoluted & strange dreams. They aren't all nightmares, but they are certainly weird.

Today I dreamed I went to a jewelry store to pick up an order. Apparently, I had gone in last week to check out a big sale they were advertising. I looked at all of their sterling silver jewelry, and picked out several things, because it was 50% off. I ordered the pieces & signed my name, saying that I would buy the pieces when they came in. The total was $153.33 - more than I should have spent, but I somehow justified it in my mind.

Anyway, today I went in to pick up the jewelry. The nice saleslady brought it out in nice little black boxes, and presented me with the final bill - for $15,333. I was shocked!! It turned out the nice sterling silver jewelry I had ordered was actually white gold. And wasn't on sale. I tried to cancel the order, to say that there was no way I could pay for this jewelry, but they (very nicely) said that I HAD to buy it - I was legally obligated.

There was much weeping & gnashing of teeth. I told them I was a SAHM with a 2 year old & a baby on the way, and had NO income. I said we'd probably have to sell one of the cars - which is strange, because we only have the minivan and a very old junker truck that's worth about $50. I asked if I could apply for a job there, and they could garnish my wages until the bill had been paid.

I woke up around that point, covered in sweat, trying to figure out how I was going to work when I'm so sick all the time, and who would watch the Girlie, and if I'd even have the bill paid off before May, when JellyBean will arrive...

I am so glad that was just a dream.

Whistling

I have a whistling tea kettle. It's a classic, a nice pretty Revere tea kettle, and it was a wedding gift about 150 10 years ago.

It's been a faithful servant, quickly boiling water for my tea, cocoa, and instant oatmeal. It usually lives out on the top of the stove; when it gets grungy, I find great satisfaction in scouring that copper bottom & making the sides all shiny & new-looking again.

But my kettle isn't perfect. It has one major flaw, and if you've been in my house when I've used it, you're aware of this flaw.

My kettle is impatient.

I've seen kettles on tv and in movies that whistle cheerfully when the water boils, chirping in the background as if to say, "Hello! Your water is piping hot, so you can make your cocoa at your convenience!"

None of that with my kettle. My kettle has about 0.21 seconds worth of cheerful whistling before it changes to screaming. Our house is small, but if I run to the kitchen as soon as I hear the whistling start, it's still almost unbearably loud by the time I pull it off the burner. There is no danger of that kettle burning dry, I promise!

As annoying as it is, sometimes I wish more things in life were like my kettle. It might be handy if my checkbook squealed when I used up my grocery money too quickly. It would be nice if the last roll of toilet paper in the house let me know, maybe with a siren, that it is, in fact, the LAST roll of toilet paper in the house.

But most of all, I wish the non-physical needs of my family would be brought to my attention with that same screaming urgency. Hubby really needs to unburden himself after a long, difficult day? Girlie needs reassurance as she senses the changes coming to our house & family? Sister-in-law needs a shoulder to cry on as she copes with a tough work environment?

It's way too easy to get caught up in the minutiae of life. I think a siren, or bell, or alarm, or even a screaming tea kettle, would help me pay attention to what really matters.

Red Sky

I'm a fairly new fan of Brandon Heath. I've heard his songs on the radio for a few years, but didn't know his name until his recent hit (which I love), Give Me Your Eyes.

Several months ago I won a huge CD set from the people who make the WOW compilation sets, courtesy of Shannon. Since we usually listen to VeggieTales in the car, I'm just now getting around to exploring some of the CDs. I saw Brandon Heath's debut album, Don't Get Comfortable, in the box, and remembered that I like his music, so I popped it in as I was running errands. (And from the backseat, I heard sounds of protest - "More listen Tales!!")

I was grooving along, not paying too much attention to the lyrics, until I got to track 5, Red Sky. (Click here to listen.)

There's a man on my street
He reminds me everyday
Better take what you can get
'Cause there's nothing more than this
Daylight fades into the ground
Oh Lord, I need You now

Chorus
Cover me
With a red sky tonight
The promise of a better day to come
Sing over me
An angelic symphony
Tell me everything will be alright
With a red sky tonight

We're so taken with our fear
That we're folded up in shame
With our feet nailed to the floor
We're the only ones to blame
I can't help but wonder why
Nobody bats an eye

You can see it in the faces
Of all the passersby
I'll sail into the sun
And when the day is done
I'll need you in the night
To wake me in the dawn
I'll see you in the sun
When the day is done

The chorus of this song has really stuck with me, and has been a bedtime prayer of sorts for me for a few days, especially as I've been feeling particularly yucky. The idea of a red sky at night reminds me of the old weather proverb, "Red sky at night, sailor's delight. Red sky at morning, sailor take warning." For those who followed that adage, a red sky at night really was a sign of a better day, and better weather, to come.

The idea of God covering us with hope and peace as we sleep is one that I cherish and cling to. Because I know that in the long run, everything really will be alright.

Stoicism? I think not...

Men are stronger than women in many ways - physically, emotionally, even sometimes mentally. But women in general have made fun of men for decades for their struggles in dealing with illness, be it a cold or an injury or whathaveyou. I've read & heard plenty of jokes about men having the sniffles and being incapacitated, whining and expecting special treatment when suffering a minor cold.

Let me just say that the situation I described is entirely reversed in our house.

Yes, indeed.

James is brave. James is strong. James is stoic. He has the unspoken mentality that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Since he works from his upstairs office, he works when he's sick - there isn't anyone to worry about infecting. He works on the cars when his knuckles are bashed & bleeding, because he doesn't want to stop & get a bandage - it's no big deal, after all. When we lived in Missouri, he once mowed our acre lot while he had the flu. He regretted that one after he threw up & was basically incapacitated for about 24 hours.

I am...not brave. Not strong. Definitely, most sincerely, not stoic. It's not that I cry & weep & wail when I'm sick or injured. But I DO take it easy, ship the Girlie off to Grandma's, take extra naps, and basically pamper myself.

That brings me, once again, to my (all-day) morning sickness. The kind of illness I am the LEAST stoic about is nauseousness. And so God, with his wisdom & sense of humor, has chosen to make me a very, very sick pregnant woman. The prescription antacid helps quite a bit, but there are days...stressful days, days when I'm tired, days when the wind blows from the west...that I am still nauseous. All day long. As in, if I move much at all, the dry heaves start.

When I was pregnant with Wendy, the nausea was worse but was actually easier to cope with - I wasn't working and I didn't have a 2 year old to care for! If moving make me sick, then fine, I'd stay in bed all day. This time around, I have to do a certain amount - I have to keep Girlie clean & fed & entertained, even though I can barely change her diaper some days.

This post doesn't really have a point, except that I always want sympathy when I don't feel good. So please, sympathize with me, and tell me I'll be feeling a lot better in just a few weeks - all I need to do is hang in there, trust God, ask for help when I need it, and remember why I'm doing this.

The reward we expect in May will be SO worth it all.

NaBloPoMo

November is National Blog Posting Month! The goal of the challenge is to post something every day during the month, to progress towards being a more regular - maybe even daily - writer. I haven't been good about posting regularly for the last several weeks, so I'm taking up the challenge to get back into the groove of writing.

This weekend will be a tough one for me, because my in-laws are visiting. (You can read about our difficult relationship here.) The morning did NOT get off to a good start; they were supposed to call this morning when they were up & about, and James was going to tell them to come by around 11 a.m. Instead, Girlie and I had just gotten up, hadn't even gotten dressed, when there was a knock at the door. At 8 a.m. On a Saturday morning. With a nauseated pregnant woman & hungry toddler in pajamas inside.

I didn't answer the door, since I didn't consider my attire to be "decent." I called James to come get the door, but by the time he came downstairs, they were gone. He called them & gently reminded them that he asked them to CALL in the morning, not stop by at the crack of dawn. Sigh.

So, right now, James and Wendy are on their way to meet my in-laws in town. I stayed at home to clean up a bit before chaos ensues.

I'm hoping for a good weekend. I'll settle for a short weekend. Pray for my attitude, patience, & health, please!