Too busy for this.

So I actually don't have time to write up a blog post right now, due to the whole moving to Canada thing... but I'm sitting here watching Violet scoot all over the room, in that "not quite crawling but more than just rolling over" way she has, and realizing that I HAVE to take the time to do at least short posts to track that sort of thing. I just went back and read through a few old posts from when Fiona was that age, and guess what? If I had no written down record of it, I WOULD HAVE NO CLUE when she did things like crawl, or cut teeth (which Violet is also doing right now, actually), or walk, or talk... I really have to be better at keeping track.

So.

Violet is just shy of 6 months old. Fiona just turned two. They had doctor visits last week, they are both TEENSY TINY little girls, Violet is actually smaller than Fiona was at that age, if you can believe that.

Fiona is getting so big, picking out her own outfits (currently she's wearing "cowboots" and jammies with my fashion scarf around her neck, and of course don't forget the "pitty" eye makeup she's got on) and drawing pictures and asking for chicken "nuckets" every day for lunch and dancing and playing (she just yesterday started doing somersaults and the "fips" (splits)) and grabbing her baby sister in a big hug and saying CHEEEEEESE every time she sees a camera, and in general "showing her personality", (which as all the parents know, is code for TANTRUMS GALORE) and she's just so terribly, wonderfully, completely TWO.

Violet is somehow nearly six months old, which is just amazing to me. She is mobile, this one. Creeping all over the room, finding the one little scrap of paper and shoving it in her mouth. Speaking of her mouth, she's got one little tooth poking through her gums (you can't see it, but trust my boob- IT'S THERE. And it's SHARP.), and unfortunately we can't use those teething tablets we used with her big sister because they've been freaking recalled like 97 thousand other things recently. But she's been really happy anyways, she is such a happy baby the majority oof the time. She nearly slept through the night one. time. A nice 7-hour stretch. But that only happened once and now we are back to that waking up about every hour and a half to two hours. Which is fairly exhausting, but at least all she wants is a quick snack and then she's back out. During the day she is smiley, and likes exploring, and talks with her big sis, and has even been behaving better in the car.

The two of them together are just too much. Fiona still holds on to baby sister's carseat when we drive anywhere. Violet cheers up when Fiona sings to her. They even share a room now, which was kind of middle of the night, spur of the moment thing that really took. I was worried that Violet would wake Fiona up and vice versa, but it's been really good for both of them. At 8:00 every night we all go upstairs and change into jammies and brush teeth and read stories and say prayers, and then Violet nurses and both girls get tucked in; we turn on the lullabies and the nightlight and then they both happily fall asleep. When Violet wakes up to eat again a few hours later, Fiona wakes up only enough to feel reassured that we are here and that she can safely stay sleeping in her bed.

Usually by the end of the night I get tired of sitting up to nurse and Violet gets pulled into bed with me, which means that by about 7am there is another little somebody standing next to my bed saying "Hi!". Nate and I are suckers, which means that we normally end up pulling her into bed with us as well. The other day we suggested that she go back to her own bed, but she just cuddled down into the covers and said "No! Suggle!" and really. Are you going to refuse that?

It's going so fast. I can't NOT take time to write things down.

Picking out pumpkins on Fiona's 2nd birthday

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This has been a long time coming.

Both girls are currently napping, so I guess now is as good a time as any to sit and type out this entry that I've been hesitant to write.

We're moving. If you facebook stalk me (and let's face it- some of you do. I'm that amazing.) you've likely heard rumblings. I may have mentioned the arctic, or the tundra, or the great white north. New Englanders, don't get excited. I'm not coming home. I'm going further north.

To Canada.

And not the part that's nice and close to New England, either. Or the part near NY.

We will be moving to Edmonton, in the province of Alberta. Which is not quite the West coast, but it's over that way. It's about 7 hours north of the Canadian border with Montana. Which uhhhh. Yeah. It's far.

And we are moving quite soon. Nate starts his new job on November 29th, the Monday after Thanksgiving. We will be spending Thanksgiving up in MA with the Grimes side of the fam before we go, and so we will be leaving Virginia in just 3 and a half weeks from now. Which ZOMGHOLY CRAP. What did I just say. For real? THREE WEEKS?

(Like, seriously. I just pulled up the calendar and double checked. Yeah, it's three and a half weeks. This is getting insane.)

Sooooo basically, if any of my VA peeps want to chill before we leave. You've got until the 16th.

AHHHHHHHHH holy crap. We've also got Halloween coming up. Pretty excited about all the goings on related to that. And Fiona's birthday. Cause my baby's gonna be two years old? What?

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Things You May Actually Already Know

There have been several things I have wanted to blog about here, but let me be frank and say that I do not actually "have my shit together" as the kids say, and so I've not updated. I will save those things for another day. Today, I want to talk about dishwashers.

Most people have their own, specific way to load a dishwasher. Maybe you learned as a child, but maybe your family didn't have a dishwasher until you were out of high school and your mom thought it funny to say that she "didn't need a dishwasher! I have eight dishwashers right here!". Maybe you had a rudimentary knowledge of dishwashers but needed your wife to teach you that anything made of wood most definitely does NOT go into the dishwasher, and yes that includes wooden spoons. Maybe you are neurotic about alternating between glasses and plastic cups on the top rack. Maybe you're all about silverware eating-side up. Maybe down. Maybe you're a complete psychopath and just toss all the silverware all every-which-a-way. Which actually kind of makes me a little queasy just thinking about it.

There are a few rules I think most of us can agree upon:
1. Don't put sharp knives in there, it'll ruin the blades.
2. Always put anything plastic on the top rack.
3. Don't put anything wooden in it. (And yes, honey, my wooden cutting boards are made of wood.)
4. Rinse off enough food so that you don't end up with a rotten mushroom on bottom of the dishwasher for the past 5 days, just sitting there waiting to dissolve into mush and go down the drain because I sure as hell am not reaching in there and picking up that nastiness.
5. Uhhh. Don't have a 5th. I just really really couldn't leave it at four.

Sometimes we ignore these rules. You accidentally put a sharp knife in there and it's still nice and sharp afterward. You throw a plastic bowl on the bottom rack cause the top rack is full and you really don't feel like washing anything by hand. It cleans just fine.

Beware, however. If you get too complacent, you may just start throwing things in willy-nilly: plastic, glass, non-stick, whatever. And then one day you may empty the refrigerator of leftovers from the past 2 months. And find yourself with a crap-ton of tupperware and makeshift tupperware. And decide that you're just going to throw everything in cause WHAT THE HELL YOU LIVE BY NO MAN'S RULES.

It's possible, should you find yourself in this situation, that you will detect a slightly burnt smell a short while later. "Damn." you will think. "Burned the damn dinner again." Upon closer inspection, you realize you haven't actually started cooking dinner, and are pretty sure you didn't chop the vegetables so fast that they may have spontaneously combusted.

But is it? Could it be the dishwasher? Did I put something wooden in there?!?!?!

No. Just plastic. Melty, melty, molten plastic. Cause I put it on the bottom rack and it fell down through the thing and sat down on the bottom of the dishwasher.

Reminded me of those sporks I used to melt in middle school.

Did you know that black ring around the bottom of the dishwasher is actually a heat coil? Preliminary polls show that 2 out of 2 adults in the LaMartina household did not.

Well, it totally is. Also, don't touch it. Or the melty plastic. Both will instantly burn the shit out of your finger with their hot hot heat, and then blister up like a mo-fo.

Ok. Maybe I'm exaggerating the extent of my injury. But it does sting.

Lessons we have learned today:
1. The lids to those black plastic Chinese take-out containers are just not worth saving.
2. Don't touch molten things.
3. If you try to squeeze too many glasses into the top rack, one of them will explode. (I actually learned this one a different day, I just couldn't find a way to work it in until now.)

On the up side, I've got a cleaned out fridge AND clean dishes. Boo-yah, grandpa.

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From the land of Sweden.

We have returned. We visited Sweden. Or, IKEA. It's basically the same thing, right? Cheap furniture and way cool setups of rooms that you never really quite can accomplish at home because at home you actually, you know, live there.

But. Our journey actually started on Tuesday, when I took the girls out to IKEA by myself because, you know. That's smart thinking. I knew we weren't going to buy anything, I knew it was a PURELY BROWSING TRIP, NATHAN but we had a day with no plans I kinda felt like having meatballs and lingonberry sauce for lunch, so hey. Fiona spent like... an hour? climbing around on all the different toddler/kid beds, playing in all the little room setups... it was fun. We had a good time.

But today we took the Jeep cause it was a day to buy. Took quite a bit of deliberation, cuase Nate and I kept changing our minds about which bed we wanted to go with (Nate kept trying to foist the decision off onto Fiona, who was all "Whatevs, y'all. I'll just be over in this little room tearing all the things out of this dresser. Peace.") but we finally decided on one, then waited in line for a BILLION YEARS to get lunch (Free kids meal! Score! I never even buy her one because she never eats it! But that meant more meatballs PLUS a side of veggies for me!) (Obviously really excited about that.) (The veggies were actually really really good. Steamed to perfection. Just beautiful. And free!) then navigated the downstairs portion of the store ("Oooh, Nate, remember how I said I needed a lamp for my desk in the office? Oh, and one of our black cereal bowls broke so we need to pick up another one of those. And we need picture frames for those prints I just got made up... and wouldn't it be nice to have cushions on those chairs out on the deck? And we can't forget..." I don't know what else. Even I lost track at that point.) and made it out of the store. And for under $200, at that. I was pleased beyond compare.

So after dinner tonight we set up the bed. This is actually our third day of naps/nighttime outside of the crib, I just dismantled the crib and dropped the mattress down to the floor because that whole "BAM- waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah" kind of made me nervous that the next time it happened she'd like land on her spine and be paralyzed for life and never be an Olympic gymnast or something. Contemplated getting one of those crib tents, but then decided against it because... well, no real reason actually. Other than those toddler beds at IKEA being so damn cute. Did a quick toddler-proofing of the room, took care of all the glaringly obvious safety hazards. I assume that Fiona will quickly point out to me all unsafe/unsecured items I may have missed, presumably by climbing/throwing/dumping them.

But now the bed's all set up, and I'm not gonna lie. It's been taking her considerably longer to fall asleep now that she's tasted the sweet sweet freedom that is knocking politely on the door and saying "Daddy? Daddy? Daddy?.... Mama?.... Hello! Hello! Helloooooooo?!?!"

She once she finally does fall asleep, she's been pretty good (knock on wood) about staying that way. The first night was pretty rough, and we are by no mean out of the woods yet, but it's a start. I just want her to be comfortable sleeping in her big girl bed before we move, whenever that ends up being. (Oh yeah, we're moving. Like, a BIG move. More on that once I get ANY DAMN INFORMATION WHATSOEVER.)

Poor kid. She's knocking on the door again. Crying this time. Breaking my heart. I have to keep reminding myself that she is a flipping DRAMZ KWEEN and will only cry if she thinks I am listening, and if I leave her she will quietly go back across the room and climb into bed and read a George book like the good little child she really is. And yes. I left my netbook in there and I am watching her from here in the office on google videochat.

And then there's poor little overlooked Violet. Who whimpered a bit at bedtime, but I nursed her and rocked her and set her down in the cradle in our room and now she's completely zonked out, for the next few hours at least.

I feel kinda bad. The majority of these entries continue to be about Fiona. I'll do a Violet one soon. She rolled over last week! Back to tummy! That's not too shabby for a 3-month-old, I'd say! And there is some kinda something happening beneath that girl's gums, because she CHOMPS like there is no tomorrow. Updates on these exciting developments coming soon.

I jest be chillin'. Relaxin'.

Fiona has as much a chance at understanding IKEA directions as we do. Yay for pictures!

Helping/hindering Daddy during bed construction.

All set for bed.
We ended up not buying the mattress that was actually the correct size for the bed, we decided to just use her crib mattress, which is the same width but a bit shorter in length... but then we got it all set up and realized that these little green boxes that we already had in the room fit PERFECTLY at the foot of the bed. So, I'm pretty much in love with the way that worked out.

"Monkey!!!!"

One last story with Daddy and BabyBye and Popper

Make no mistake. This child is a good two hours away from falling asleep. You can see it in her eyes.

Aaaaaaaaand we've reached the fake crying portion of the night. We're getting to the falling asleep part soon, folks. I hope...

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It's probably gonna be a madhouse, but...

IKEA tomorrow!

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Follow-up

To answer the questions I am SURE you have.

1. It isn't.
2. Kind of.

Cause I'll put good money on you wanting to know how the potty training is going and if I am still working out diligently.

To clarify- it's the potty training that isn't. And the working out... well, it hasn't comPLETEly stopped. I worked out this morning, so yay me! I did great the first week. Every day for a solid week. Then I missed the weekend. Then 5 more days on. Then it was VIOLETS BAPTISM EXTRAVAGANZA WEEKEND and I missed the weekend and a couple more days after that. And then the past week has been spotty at best. But as I mentioned- I did it this morning, so here's hoping I can continue. Sounds crazy, but it seems I am actually more likely to get up at exercise at 6am before work than if I can sleep in and wake up before the kids at 8:30 and do it. Sooooo yeah. Work starts up again next week, mayhap that will get me in gear again.

Now as to the potty training- after a solid 5 days of staying at home and feeding the child m&ms, I came to the realization that I was so. fricking. tired. of. it. all. Also, she did not seem to be catching on. So, I decided to put the lid on that little experiment and revisit it a a month or two. Maybe by then she'll be more ready. We've still got potties out and undies around, so she can use those at will until I decide to fully commit again. Plus, I sort of ate the entire 2lb bag of m&ms.

Hmm... what else has been happening around here? Well, we've had several visitors- Nate's mom was in town for a couple weeks, that was awesome. My sister Kelsie was here, and then the insanity that is my family was here for the baptism weekend, and then Mickey stayed a few days after that. Don't get me wrong, family. I love each of you dearly. But that weekend was fairly nutso. It did not help that it rained the day of the baptism and I had 40+ people (many of them noisy children) in my little townhouse. But it was a fun kind of nutso. We went out to dinner one night at a really nice restaurant out in National Harbor. My aunt basically designed the entire place, so that was way cool to see. If you're in the area and in search of some FANTASTIC crab cakes or artichoke-spinach dip (among other things), I would highly recommend you check out McLoone's Pierhouse. Great service, gorgeous waterfront view, just a really nice evening. .

There was something else I wanted to plug... OH YEAH. My little sis (an art student in Boston) has a new-ish Etsy site where she sells all sorts of artsy things like handmade journals and notebooks and whatnot... she's super rad. You should totes check it out.

What else... oh yeah. My children are basically TOO ADORABLE FOR WORDS.

Fiona in the midst of some crazy, joker-inspired fingerpainting.

Violet in the swing, blissfully unaware of the suckfest that is the Sox this season.

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Better Late Than Never

Like every other mommy type blogger under the sun, I have decided to do the 30-Day Shred. The difference is that everyone else did it like two years ago when the DVD actually came out. I'm doing it now. That makes me special and definitely not a crowd follower, right? Right?!?!?! Right.

ANYWAYS.

Bottom line is- ouch. The way the whole thing works is, it's a half hour, every day, for a month (or however long your crazy ass wants). I'm gonna shoot for a month and see where that gets me. I, like pretty much every person I know, have done like a billion different "I'm gonna get in shape" things, usually starting in January, or the beginning of a month, or the beginning of a week at least, buuuuuut. Last night I just decided that I'd had enough, I was starting asap. And when it's 3am, ASAP is most definitely the next day.

I've weighed in, taken my before pictures, I'll take measurements as soon as I can locate the damn measuring tape, and I will be holding on to those so that I can completely WOW you with my progress a month from now.

But the workout itself- uh, yeah. For a half hour thing, it's pretty intense for my little out of shape self. I was surprised. Push-ups?!?! HA. Def had to do the girlie ones, on my knees. And even those were brutal. After I finished the workout (Nate watched the babies while I did it, the guy has promised to back me up in this endeavor, up to and including pushing me to workout even when I don't want to. I promised to try not to get mad at him for that.), my arms were sore, my legs hurt in walking up the stairs. I'm a little worried about how I'll be feeling tomorrow. But I shall push through and work through it and I shall WIN and fit back into my old clothes and it shall be AMAZING.

I've also decided that I will go to bed earlier. No staying up until 3am. I get crazy ideas late at night.

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Potty Trainings. I has it.

We are two days into this potty training thing. Non-parents, I totally get if you skip this post. It's really okay.

Before you say anything- yes, she's young. But she's not that young, and she's shown a real interest in the potty (we've had it sitting out in the bathroom for a couple months now), and so if I can take that interest and channel it into less diapers? All for it. Plus, she's got a booty rash right now and so needs to be pantless for a couple days anyways, so why the hell not.

As I was saying. We are two days in. Yesterday there was a LOT a peeing in the big girl panties in the morning. Like, a lot. But it got better. Then this morning she did AWESOME. She peed in the potty like every 3 minutes for an hour. (Yeah, pretty sure she's no dummy. She learned pretty quick that pee in potty=m&m. Hence the need to empty the potty every 4 drops.) (Also she freaking LOVES to wash her hands.)

We even had, wait for it, POOP in the potty!!! I was taking a small break from monitoring her every move, looking for signs of pee. I was sipping my coffee, in fact. Then I looked up and realized SHOOT she's out of my sight, where is she where is she she better not be peeing on the couch crap whereISSHE!?!??! And she was in the bathroom. Sitting on the potty. Saying "Poop, Mama. Potty."

OH. HELL. YES.

Granted, we later had a naptime diaper poop with a very small amount on her hand, a poop in the panties on the way to the potty, and a small turd on the floor (which I also missed, but found out about when she walked into the kitchen and opened the cabinet where we keep the rags, saying "Tlean. Tlean, Mama." Don't know how a TL sound is easier than a CL, but there you go.) but still. We had contained, potty poop. There is hope.

She is by no means trained yet. Not one of those "oh, yeah, my kid trained in a day. It was nothing. I just said "pee goes in the potty" and they were all over it." Which is unfortunate, because I've been told I was one of those kids. Sigh.

But it's going well thus far. We shall see how tomorrow goes. Also, Nate gets home tonight. Yay!

The view from the throne. Watching some "Gabba" to try and keep butt in seat.

"Pee! Treat, Mama!"

Refusing help on the long, splashy walk to the bathroom.

Waving bye-bye to the peeps.

"ZOMG HANDWASHING!!!1!!!11!!"

Potty training toolz. M&M's, alcohol with lunch, Mary statue for inspiration.

The overview of my wreck of a living room. Yoooooooo Gabba Gabba!

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It isn't all sunshine and rainbows... except when it is.

I'm up way too late, as usual. And Nate is out of town for a few days, so there isn't anyone here to tell me to "go to sleep already, this is the reason you're so tired all the time".But I'm sitting here on the couch, just hanging out with a sleeping baby snuggled up on my chest. She really is an amazingly good baby. As most of you know, I am NOT a baby person in general. But this little kiddo... She only cries when she is hungry or needs a diaper change (Or when she get smacked in head with a travel coffee mug. My bad on that one.) and even then she settles down pretty easily.

Normally when she falls asleep in the evening I put her in the swing and do whatever, have my on-my-own time. Tonight though, I'm just holding her. She's so snuggly. And her little cheeks are just so kissable.

Miss Violet just chillin' on a hideously awesome couch while vacationing in Virginia Beach.

In conclusion, I need to get some sleep. I just wanted to make sure people don't get the wrong impression, with all the complaining I normally do on this here blog. I do love these kids to bits.

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Ugh.

So, I haven't really been sleeping. And I can't even blame it on either baby, they're (knock on wood) pretty good sleepers. Fiona rarely wakes up during the night, and Violet, well, we're still co-sleeping/nursing, so most of the time all it takes is for me to roll over and stuff a boob in her mouth and she's back out.

Once I'm asleep, I sleep just fine. I slept through my alarm TWICE this week, which really sucks because as a babysitter, I'm not the only one that's late. My tardiness has a ripple effect on my employers. I did get there on time today though, so that was good.

It's the falling asleep that's the problem. It started Saturday, when I didn't fall asleep until 5am. Sunday it was 3. Monday and Tuesday 2, and last night about 2:30. Which really doesn't work out so well, when you consider that I have to be up for work at 6:30. Last night I was fiiiiiiiiinally falling asleep, and then I heard Fiona very clearly say "Mama?" and it sounded like she was right in the doorway of our room and I was like "How in the hell did she get out of her crib?" and so I tried to answer her but I couldn't make any noise and I realized I was asleep so I WOKE myself up with a start and said "go back to bed, honey" at which point Nate rolled over and mumbled something to the effect of "Did you say something?" But of course she wasn't in the doorway. She was asleep. In her crib. Like a normal person. And I now had to begin the process of falling asleep all over again.

It's really starting to be a problem. I can sometimes grab a little nap during the day, but it's hard to time things to make that happen. I forgo the old adage "Sleep when the baby sleeps", and substitute my own version, which is usually something along the lines of "Sleep while the one baby sleeps and the other baby is strapped in to her high chair eating a freeze-pop and watching Yo Gabba Gabba". It works.

Except when it doesn't. Today was a big day. Grocery shopping day. I've been meaning to go since we got home from MA a week ago. I was understandably nervous about this trip, because it was to be my first time going alone with both the girls. And we all know how I feel about grocery shopping anyways...(ps, Wegman's carts still suck. Who thought it would be a good idea to redesign them so that they can hold LESS groceries?) (oh, and shoutout to the very cool woman who was shopping with her 6-month-old, who told me that her older daughter was 2 also, and gave me nice words of encouragement.) (I would also like to send an ANTI-shoutout to the meddlesome old lady who stopped and told me that she "...hopes I don't take this the wrong way, but she has 4 children, so she knows... The baby in there[my Moby wrap which I LOVE], it's not safe. It's breathing it's own air. I don't mean to interfere, but I just love babies!" Really, lady? You think I don't? Hello, it's a freaking PIECE OF FABRIC that is actually QUITE open up near her head. She can breath. Thanks. Go choke on a prune.)

Where was I. Grocery shopping. So whatever, I finally did the shopping, it was largely uneventful. Which of course meant I was SUPER proud of myself and seriously called three people and was all "dooood I went grocery shopping! Aren't I awesome! Aren't you proud of me? What? You have to go? You don't actually care? You shop for groceries too? Oh." And then I remembered that my life must be pretty boring if grocery shopping is exciting. And then I figured I hadn't bored enough people yet, so I better blog about it, too! Yay!

Oh, I had a doctor appt this afternoon, too. Which I scheduled for 2pm. Cause it's always nice to have an appointment smack in the middle of nap time.

I had big plans for dinner (yummy but fairly simple-to-make spicy orange glazed chicken and green beans and corn bread), but between the shopping and the waking babies up from naps to go the doctors office, and the whole 4 hours of sleep I got last night (in two 2-hour chunks), I was totally beat. When Nate got home I just went into the kitchen and started grabbing things for dinner. Chicken nuggets. Oooh, French fries. Here, have this leftover white cheddar mac&cheese. Oh, a vegetable...let's see, we've got... corn. As I set Fiona's plate down on her tray, I realized I was serving them chicken and three different kinds of starch. Plus milk. Awesome. The meal was so white it was blinding. (Well, it wasn't all like white white, it was more a mix of white, yellow, and light brown, but same thing.) Never a good thing, having a monochromatic meal like that.

So I did the only thing I could do; I started crying about serving three starches at one meal. Cause that's normal.

I really hope I sleep tonight.

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You can't make this shit up.

My new position as "Supervisor of two small monsters, specializing in shit removal" has kept me quite busy. I've been alone (during the day) with these two for a week now, so at this point I feel totally deserving of those "oh wow, how do you do it?" looks and comments I get at the mall/grocery store/church/doctor's office/etc. Before that my wonderful too-good-to-be-true silver tea set sister was here with me for nearly a month. (Points if you get that reference) And she got here the same day that Nate went back to work. He was home for two weeks. And before that, well, I hadn't been promoted yet. Before that I was just working as "Pregger Mother of One".
Seriously, it's been two months since I posted. I'm not even sure I have the time/energy/memory to recap. Suffice it to say we've been busy. That whole eat/sleep/shit/repeat routine is brutal.
Speaking of shit. My toddler is some kind of artist, with human fecal matter being her medium of choice. I'm not sure what this says about her future (the internet has plenty to say, of course, but from what I've gathered, it's only autism if the kid engaging in poop play is much older than this little one.), but for the here and now? I alternate between anger, frustration, defeat, and laughter. Her favorite place to play is in her crib. Turns out those three hour naps? Sort of more an hour and a half of nap followed by and hour and half of playing with crap. Literally. Sometimes we are greeted with fresh murals in the morning. She wakes up quietly, that one. If you put her down to bed (nighttime or naptime) in anything less than full leggings with a onesie overtop (it's her 80's aerobics instructor look), she's digging in that dipe the moment it gets filled.
And then occasionally there is the middle-of-the-day play. This is usually less artwork, more "props". For example, one day she was playing with her play dishes, making a snack and pretending to eat it. I failed to notice at first that she was playing with real raisins. From the day before. That had recently seen the inside of an intestine.

Today's minor fiasco involved the Fisher Price farm set. I was sitting on the couch, nursing the baby, watching Fiona play so nicely over there with her toys. What a good girl she is. Violet fell asleep, I placed her into her swing, and went over to join Fiona. And then I saw it. Manure. Actual shit in the little cart that hooks to the back of the farmer's tractor. Carrots and raisins, from the look of it. Creative, this one.

I sternly informed her that no, we do NOT play with poop. And then laughed my head off, internally. Because seriously. What else can you do?

I'm off to google "my toddler plays with poop" to see if anybody else has any worse stories to make me feel better, and "how can I tell if my toddler is ready for potty training" because I'm pretty sure we are heading in that direction very very soon...

"Moo, moooooo"
This was, of course, after I'd cleaned all things poopy. I'm not that bad of a parent.

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Guess what!

As you may have deduced from the recent lack of "ugh, I'm still pregnant" type posts... I had the baby!

And she is a girl! And pretty flippin sweet!

May I present...

Violet Lousie LaMartina
born May 16th, 2010 at 4:55pm
weighing 8lb, 5oz
20.5 inches long

I am working on getting the birth story all written up, I probably won't post it up publicly here cause you know, tmi and all that, but if you're actually interested in hearing all the gory details, just let me know and I am totally cool with sharing it privately. But I will give the basic gist of how things went down.

Last Friday I was.. ugh. Feeling very ugh. Was supposed to go to this mom's night out thing, and totally ended up bailing cause I was so anti-social. Went to bed crazy early (like, seriously. I was in bed by like 8:45) and woke up Saturday feeling much better. We headed out to Warrenton for the day, for a friend's graduation party. And that was very very nice. It was just family, we all just chilled out for the entire day, it was great. Pregnancy-wise, there was a big ole NOTHING going on. No contractions or anything. Saturday night I decided to continue with the niceness of the day and not get all worked up about "argh when is the baby going to come" and stop browsing the inane STUPIDNESS of pregnancy message boards where people agonize over "is this a contraction?" and "how can I tell if I'm in labor?" and crap like that. Nate and I had a nice relaxing evening- ate some pizza and ice cream, caught up on some tivo'd shows, I even had a small glass of red wine. We went to bed as normal, at a decent hour, even, because we had to get up for church in the morning.
Sunday morning at around 5:15am I woke up to pee (for the fourth time). Noticed some cramping. Noticed that it was coming and going. Considered timing it on my handy dandy contraction timer app that I had downloaded to my phone, but quickly realized that this was most likely the real thing and that I should probably grab a little more sleep if I could. I dozed off and on until I heard Fiona waking up at around 7:30. I brought her into our bed for a little morning cuddle time, and I let Nate know that we were probably going to be seeing this new baby by tonight. We still planned on going to the 10:30 Mass though, cause the contractions, although they were coming at about every 3-4 minutes or so, were fairly mild still. By 8:00 Nate had Fiona downstairs in her highchair eating breakfast, the contractions had gotten a smidgen stronger, and I suggested that maybe we should try and hit the 9:00 Mass instead. So I jumped in the shower real quick. When I got out of the shower at 8:30 and started to get dressed, I decided that maaaaaaybe going to Mass was not in the cards for this morning. I started timing the contractions for real on my phone, and we made heads up calls to our baby/dog watching support team.
For the next two hours I timed contractions while we ate breakfast, started packing up what we needed for the hospital, gathered up Fiona's things, made t-shirts (seriously, I had designed these big sister/little sister/brother tshirts and I had never gotten around to printing them onto the transfer paper and ironing them on, and it became very important to me that I get this done before we leave.), fed the dog, etc. We called the doctor at around 10:30. At this point contractions were about 2-3 minutes apart, lasting 45-60 seconds each. Fiona was just playing with some toys during all this, but she was also interested in what I was doing, and definitely started copying me when I started concentrating and breathing through each contraction. Which was adorable.
We headed for the hospital at around 11:30. We dropped Fiona off with some friends of ours on the way over, and the minute we pulled away from their house I burst into tears because, "The next time I see her she'll be a big sister and she won't be my baaaaaaaaaby anymore..."

At the hospital, the abridged version:
Got to the hospital around noon, got all checked in, got situated in the room by 12:30, and then we did the whole labor/delivery thing for a few hours. Baby was born at 4:55.

Annnd it was great. When she came out, nobody did the whole "It's a girl!" announcement thing, they just sort of slapped her up onto my chest and I was trying to look and check if this child was a boy or a girl... and so I think I was the one that got to announce that it was indeed a girl. I then turned to Nate and said "Oh crap, we haven't agreed on a girl's name!"

As they cleaned her up, we all discussed possible name choices... we really didn't have that moment of "when you see her you'll just know what her name is". It took us maybe a half hour before we decided that she was, in fact, a Violet. And the middle name... well, that one took us two full days to think of and agree on.

On Monday Nate brought Fiona to the hospital to meet her baby sister, and there was some SERIOUS cuteness overload happening. Fiona kept wanting to hold and kiss the baby, and to snuggle with me in my bed, and then we all sat together on the bed and ate dinner from the caf and watched some tv and snuggled some more before Nate brought Fiona back home.

Things got a little tricky towards the end of our hospital stay, as Violet developed a bit of jaundice, which required some phototherapy and supplementing breastfeeding with some formula, all of which was very overwhelming and confusing but which turned out just fine. We had our second follow-up visit at the pediatrician's office yesterday and everything is looking great. She's still looking a tad yellowy, but the doc said that will it should clear up in time.

We are still settling in, Fiona has been super extra clingy for the past few days, and has had some trouble sleeping through the night. But its a big adjustment, learning to share Mama and Daddy with this new little thing that cries. I don't expect it to be easy.

Even with the lack of sleep and the craptasticness of recovery, things are really really great right now. So I'm gonna go enjoy my little girlies. Who would have thought that I, of all people, would have two girls. I was the tomboy, the one who took the babysitting jobs with the crazy boys, NOT the one who dealt with cute little outfits and pigtails and hairbows and all that nonsense. I don't even wear pink! And yet, here I am with two little girls, loving it. Life's funny.

Fiona taking her little sister Violet home from the hospital. She left her hand on the carseat like that the whole ride home. It was way too freaking adorable.

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Yep.

The scene: A doctor's office.
The characters: Me. A doctor.

DOCTOR: Oh, hai. You're still pregnant.
ME: Yup.
DOCTOR: See you next week.
ME: Peace out.

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Non-post.

This is a non-post. It is merely to say that I had my 39-week OB visit, annnnnnd... I may as well not have gone. It was a direct copy of last week's appt. Weight, measurement, blood pressure, baby's heartbeat, all movements toward labor... everything exactly the damn same. We are officially in a holding pattern. But, that's good, I guess.

Last night we had movie night with the sibs that are here visiting. We watched Star Wars, which we had decided on before I even realized that yesterday was some sort of "Star Wars Day"... well, Nate and the kids watched it anyways. I sat down and tried to. We did up the movie night right, got pizza and soda and popcorn and ice cream and everything... but I sat there for like 5 minutes, ate a half a piece of pizza, and then couldn't sit still any. more. I originally was just having a panic attack at how wrecked the living room was, so I real quick picked up all the toys and books and stuff, hoping that would be enough to allow me to sit and enjoy the movie. Buuuuuuut nope. Not even close. Had to move from there into the kitchen, then to bringing the past month's worth of recycling out to the curb, then to bringing all the dirty laundry to the basement, then to the pile of "hand-wash-only" laundry that has been sitting on the basement floor for seriously the last 3 months, and then I was able to sit for a few minutes. But then there were diapers to fix leg elastic on, and emails to send... ended up going to bed around 2am.

Getting up at 6:00 this morning to shower before work was fun, after that... but I had to. Cause had to be at work, and can't go to the doctor appointment all stank smelling. Got out of the shower, did makeup, was about to get dressed and run out the door... and the phone rang. They didn't need me today after all. Well, shoot. Now I'm literally all dressed up with nowhere to go. But I was already awake, like actuall awake, not even close to that groggy "Cool, I'm going back to bed" frame of mind.

So I went downstairs, made a pot of coffee, and attacked a project I've been putting off for weeks- sewing cloth baby wipes. Got a good chunk of it done before I had to leave for the doc.

Now I'm thinking I'll attempt grocery shopping again? Here's hoping it goes better this time. I've got reinforcements to protect me from mean old people this week, so I'm hopeful.

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The number 9

Today's post is brought to you by the number 9.

Also, by other numbers that may or may not be loosely related to the number nine.

Firstly. I am nine months pregnant. That means I am very uncomfortable most of the time. However, I recently have been really trying not to complain so much, I really have. Most of the time that doesn't work so well and I'm still whiny. Buuuuut I'm so close to the end. It's seriously almost here. There are 9 days until my due date. That is a very small number. It is a single digit number counting DAYS and not weeks or months.

Sooooo yeah. Very very close to the end. Very very close to having to do the whole newborn thing again. Oh, and the whole labor and delivery part. Whiiiich was not exactly the funnest thing I've ever done. On account of the lack of pain meds, which apparently means that I was able to fully enjoy my birthing experience? Whatev. Alls I know is, it went pretty well last time (I've been told), and so I plan on doing that again. Cause I hear that 5 and a half hours of labor for your first baby is actually pretty good, and that it will be less this time around? Okay, cool. I can do that. I've been reading up on my birthing techniques. Sitting on my exercise ball. Encouraging this baby to move on down into the birth canal and Get. Things. Going. At my appointment last week, the doc told me that things have started shifting around and preparing to open up in there, but that hey. That means basically nothing. It means I'm pretty pregnant and I'll be having a kid soon, and guess what, doctor? I already knew that! Also at my last appointment- found out I actually LOST a pound between weeks 37 and 38, and she said "oh that can sometimes signal impending labor" and I was all "yeah, my first wasn't born until 41 and a half weeks" and she was all "Oh, okay. Maybe not then." And since it's been 5 days since that doctor appointment and this kid is still in utero, I'd say that the 1lb weight loss was not, in fact, a sign of impending labor.

Another 9. This one is 9x2=18, which is how many months old my little chickadee is. (I told you some of the 9s were a stretch, didn't I?). Fiona had her 18-month checkup today, she's officially a year and half old, and officially still tiny. She measured 30.5inches long (when the hell do they start being "tall" instead of "long?" She definitely stands up most of the time these days.) and weighed in at all of 19.7lbs. (see, another 9!) Sooo that keeps my peanut on the 20% for height, and >5% for weight. I was really rooting for her to hit that 20lb mark at a year and half, but no. Still a bit less that 19 and a half. Which is nice for me, actually, since I am also currently required to tote around 30 pounds of kid and kid habitat in my abdomen. Once again, the doctor assured me that she is totally healthy, we don't need to worry about any special weight-gain diets or anything like that. She's just straight up little and that's okay. Developmentally everything checked out, too. She doesn't have a TON of words yet, but she's coming along. She recently learned the sign for "Please", and how to say "Help" and that has improved my quality of life GREATLY. More on that subject in another post.

That's actually all I wanted to cover tonight. It's 10:59 and I am le tired.

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Ahem.

To elaborate on the List of Things That Can Go Suck It.

1. The cashier at Wegman's. Please don't give me false hope by saying "Are you sure they got the date right?" when I tell you that I have three weeks left. It makes me discouraged. Don't you know I already nearly cried like 4 times in past hour? Due in part to...

2. The 90 frajillion old people that gave me dirty looks in the grocery store. Yes, I know my toddler is screaming. Yes, I am trying to quiet her down. Yes, that means that I am in the process of opening a box of animal crackers that I have not yet actually purchased. I am going as fast as I can, she has already eaten through a slice of ham, a pita pocket, a bottle of water, and 2 bites of summer squash (which was actually an accident. I didn't realize she was eating that. I put it in the cart and turned to look at something else and when I looked back she was saying "Nana! Nana!" and happily chomping away. In her defense, it does look very much like a banana. Although she shouldn't be eating a banana with the peel still on, but hey. Which brings me to item 3 on my List of Things That Can Go Suck It).

3. The carts at Wegmans. Okay, I think it's totally cool that you put space for two children to be buckled into the cart. I also like the fact that you have a parking garage so that I don't have to go out into the rain. And if I was shopping alone I'm sure I would like this feature of a multi-level cart. However, I DO NOT like that idea when shopping with a toddler. It really limits the amount of groceries I can put in that cart, because that top level (which, when shopping alone, I'm sure is perfect for those eggs or bread that you inevitably pick up first and then squash underneath all your canned goods) is TOTALLY reachable by the toddler buckled into the cart, rendering that entire level unusable. Well, I mean, you can use it. But said toddler may end up eating some summer squash.

That's it for now. And lest I include only my bitter diatribes about how ridiculously irritable I am today, I will also include the fact that I had my 37-week checkup with the doctor today. I've gained another pound since last week (putting the total gain at 28. Dammit. This child better come in the next 2 weeks, I'd really like to keep the gain at under 30.), but my blood pressure is great, baby is measuring exactly the right size, has a nice strong heartbeat, and is head-down. It's all a matter of waiting.

Things That Most Certainly Do Not Suck and Will Get Me Through Today

1. My half-caf, double tall, 2 pump, nonfat, no whip, Cinnamon Dolce Latte. Yes, I am one of those people. Deal with it.

2. My lovely husband who takes the baby to work with him while I go to my doctor appointments. I mean, come on. How awesome is that?

3. New friends who call me out of the blue because they're "on the way to the grocery store and thought of you and how we both hate grocery shopping with a passion!" and then proceed to talk about the evils of the grocery store and the likelihood that we will inadvertently teach our children all the best cuss words. (Note to self: probably should stop saying things like "Honey, you really need to calm down and be a good girl or Mama is seriously going to lose her shit." in the middle of the grocery store, within hearing distance of glary-type old person. Might also help cut down on the glares from old people.)

4. The knowledge that by the end of this afternoon my kitchen is going to be amazingly clean and organized. I have SUCH a big plan, you don't even know. It involves making lists and then pulling things out of cabinets, and I just might have plans to take an actual written inventory of what foodstuffs I have and then create schematics for how it should all fit into the cabinets/fridge/freezer. Yes. I am that obsessive. I did it when I worked at Starbucks and it did wonders for ease of ordering and use of products on hand. I see no reason why my kitchen should not operate in the same way.

Peace out, y'all.

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So close and yet so. Damn. Far.

Tomorrow I'll hit the 37-week mark on this pregnancy. I don't know how in the hell I am going to make it. I'm definitely done with the whole being pregnant thing, but then I remember that to not be pregnant anymore means to have to care for a toddler AND an infant. Annnnnnd then I'm okay with still being pregnant.

Now, I will regale you with Some Things That Have Bothered Me Recently.

1. I DO NOT want to hear about "how HUGE I am getting" or that I "look like I'm about to pop". Trust me. I feel enormous enough without your reminding me every. single. damn. morning. when I get to work. Please remember that when I get to your house to watch your daughter, it is 7am and I probably woke up approximately 6 minutes prior to seeing you. I am most definitely still in my pajamas, have barely contained my bedhead, and may or may not have brushed my teeth. I am probably still half-asleep, and that's alright because your daughter does not wake up for another hour, during which I will have time to mainline a cup of coffee. And yes, I am still drinking caffeinated coffee while pregnant. Sue me. But so help me god, if you tell me ONE MORE TIME that I'm "moving so slowly these days" or that I "look like a woman on a mission to just have this baby now" I swear I will flip the eff out.

2. Okay. So maybe I'm not the biggest pregnant woman you've ever seen. In fact, I'm fairly certain I'm not. But let me assure you that this is the biggest that I, personally, have ever been. So I would like to reserve the right to complain without you telling me how you had it so much worse. Commiserate, yes please, by all means. But seriously, unless you're hugely pregnant RIGHT NOW, I feel worse at this particular moment in time, so please give me my turn to be the whiny little snot.

2a. I would also like to give a shout out to all the women that have told me that I "look so cute" and tell me that I'm lucky cause I "only got a belly!" and that my stomach "looks like one of those fake pregnancy bellies on tv!". Please feel free to continue such comments, as long as you allow me to thank you and then continue to bitch about how huge I feel.

3. Pelvic pain can go suck it. Same goes for back pain.

4. Uhhh, that's actually pretty much it for today. That's all that's bothering me.

Things are actually going along just fine. Babygirl continues to be ridiculously cute, which very nearly makes up for the crankiness in the afternoon when all I want to do is sit on the couch with a heating pad on my back. I am slowly slowly making my way through the to-do-before-baby-gets-here list I have. Which isn't actually written out in list form, and so makes things sort of difficult. Problem is, every time I get out a pen and a notepad, it is stolen by a 17-month-old and as a result there may be pen marks all over our couch...

37-week doctor visit tomorrow. Expect a full report.

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Down but not out

Sunday morning we got up on time. We got out of bed on time. We happily started getting ready for church, hoping hoping HOPING to actually make it on time for once. I dressed the baby, picked out a cute sundress with leggings for myself, then decided that it was a little too chilly for the sundress alone, so I bent down to grab a sweater (out of the ridiculously out of control pile of clean/semi-clean clothes on the bedroom floor) and bam. Shooting horrific pain exploding all over my entire, but especially lower, back. It dropped me to my knees, and I nearly burst into tears as I called Nate to "come help me, quick! My back went out!"

And so, we didn't make it to church at all. Nate managed to somehow cart my pregnant ass over to the bed and get me all situated. I'm not gonna lie, I was in some serious pain any time I tried to move any muscle at all... so I spent Sunday in bed. Monday I felt a bit better, but still needed to take it easy, so my amazing husband took the day off from work so that he could take care of Fi and I could stay in bed another day. (He did offer by saying he would "do all the maid work, like cleaning the kitchen and putting away the laundry and taking care of the baby", which made me ask if he had just called me a maid, and he quickly backpedaled and tried to pull his foot out of his mouth real quick... but it was all good.)

Now here it is Wednesday, I'm feeling much better, but by the mid-afternoon my back is still pretty much done. Had a slight pregnant freak-out moment this afternoon... concerning what one of my favorite bloggers has termed the "pregnancy fluids of mystery." After a google-induced worry-fest of an afternoon, Nate convinced me to give my doctor a call. I did, and they had me come on in, and turns out that no, I was not in fact leaking any amniotic fluid. It's totally normal to be just that gross. The doctor nicely lied to me and told me they'd always rather I come and have it be nothing than the other way around, and no, I wasn't "that patient" just because of this and because I called the doctor on call over the weekend asking if maybe there was more I could do for my back than tylenol and rest?

Anyways. Everything continues to look fine, baby-wise, and I still have to go in for my regular visit next week. I'm officially 36 weeks today, so at this point any time I go into labor is fine, but ugh. You know it's gonna be a najillion years till that happens.

The child will. not. get. out. of. my. ribcage. Also, is causing horrific amounts of heartburn that no amount of Tums will cure. We had big plans to make real dinner tonight, (on the grill, even!) but as usual, all I feel like I can handle eating is a bowl of cereal. So once again, Nate's doing dinner for himself and the chickie. Maybe tomorrow I'll feel up to eating.

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35 Weeks

It. Is. Hot.

In April. It is nearly 90 degrees, for the third day in a row now! I am miserable with summer heat combined with spring allergies and of course all the fun stuff that come with the whole being pregnant thing... ugh.

Okay. I will try to stop complaining. We're supposed to have some serious rain tomorrow, and that should help with both the allergies and the heat, so I'm looking forward to that.

Had my 35-week checkup today. Everything continues to progress nicely, there's really nothing to report. Heartbeats good, baby is measuring right on the money, I've gained a pound since my last visit, which puts me up to 26 lbs. I'm reallllllly hoping to keep it to 30 lbs total, but we'll see if that works. I think it will just come down to how long I go. They gave me the "here's when to call us and when to go to the hospital blah blah and we won't stop your labor once you hit 36 weeks" paper today at my appointment. So we've got one more week to go, and then baby is welcome to come at ANY POINT. Although, I have no expectations of seeing him/her this month. I think we all remember Miss Fiona and her "I think I'd like to be a week and a half late" attitude. I'm prepared to endure another 5 full weeks of the heartburn and the Braxton-Hicks contractions and the kicks to the lungs and the existing on ice cream and breakfast cereal. Because yes, once again this pregnancy all I want to eat is cereal and ice cream. Somehow it's not working quite as well on the weight control this time though... though that probably has more to do with the fact that I haven't been exercising nearly as much. Last time I was walking for at least an hour, 3 or 4 times a week... this time I'm lucky to get out once a week. Eh. Maybe if I step it up here at the end it will still give me some of the benefits at the end of pregnancy. And since the weather is supposed to cool down and be ACTUALLY SPRING next week, maybe I'll actually be able to get out there.

Well, Finn is currently napping, so I'm gonna end here and try to grab a little sleep myself. If I don't I will be mucho cranky by this afternoon's end.

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Just like her Mama

Well, we've hit another milestone today. Fiona made a boy cry. I'm not entirely sure what happened, they were kind of like riiiiiight out of my line of vision, over to the side of the chair I was sitting on. But, yeah. We went to a new playgroup today, one we hadn't been to and didn't know anyone, so as usual it was kind of awkward at first. The other mothers were nice enough, the kids were all right around Fiona's age (which meant nobody really wanted to play with anyone else, they all just kind of played in the same general area), and we were having a pretty good time what with the goldfish crackers and the coffee. (It doesn't take much to make Fi and I happy, obviously)

Anyways. The incident. It may have actually been nothing, maybe she bumped into the kid, maybe she grabbed, maybe she tried to "share". All I know is that by the time I turned around, his snack cup was on the ground, amidst a small pile of goldfish crackers that Fiona was promptly hoovering up for us. She's good like that. This kid looks at her, and just dissolved into tears. He didn't seem like a particularly whiny kid up to that point, which is why I'd put money on her grabbing those fishies away from him like the little pint-sized bully she apparently is. I wasn't quite sure how to handle it, though. We removed the fishies from the situation, and the little boy's mother came over and was just like "looks like somebody's getting tired" and picked him up, it was really a non-event. But I kinda felt bad. I mean, she's small, and from experience I know that you've got to have a certain level of toughness to combat that, but I don't want her picking on boys when she's in the fourth grade, stepping on their feet or elbowing them when they're behind her in line, thus making them cry and calling them crybaby in front of everyone, or hitting them in the face with a windup Ghostbusters toy when they sit behind her on the school bus (repeat crying and namecalling). Not that I did anything like that when I was little. Poor kid. He really was a crybaby, but he probably just had a crush on me, and I used to torment the living crap out of him.

But I digress.

So, we've had our first bullying incident. I'm hoping that the next time something like this happens, I'll actually see it and be able to better gauge the seriousness of the situation, and deal with it appropriately. Cause she's gonna have to learn to be nicer. I don't want her biting the baby. Again, not that I did that to my sister or anything...

Today after playgroup we got home for naptime annnnnnnnd.... no nap. So I got her up from her crib, and we ate lunch and played and sang and danced and played and read stories and I though for SURE she'll sleep now annnnnnnd she slept for like 45 minutes. Which is not nearly enough. So tonight was a cranky evening for us here at the LaMartina household, even more so once Nate called and said he was gonna have to stay at work a bit later than normal...

But I still somehow managed to get dinner on the table! Cause I made one of the recipes out of my new crockpot cookbook! And since dinner was already halfway made by 1pm, it made it much easier to just throw together some mashed potatoes and microwave some carrots once Nate did get home. So, we had a delicious homecooked meal for the second night in a row. That's right, y'all. I cooked last night, too. Shake-n-bake chicken and oven roasted potatoes and broccoli. AND made banana muffins for this morning's playgroup. With whole wheat flour, none the less! Look at me go.

Now babygirl is sleeping, and the boys are downstairs having a beer/halo/microwave pizza/"forget we are husbands and fathers and kick back like we're in college type" of evening. I've been banished to the upstairs lest I break that fantasy, but it's all good. I've got my cup of tea, I've got my little stack of shortbread cookies, I've got my book. I'm gonna chill out and then go to bed early. And I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty excited about that.

edited to add: My cup of tea got cold as I typed up this post. So I went downstairs to throw it in the microwave and ran back upstairs to take out contacts/wash my face/change into pajamas while the tea heated up again. I hear a knock on the bathroom door, it's the hubs. He saw me put the tea in the microwave and walk back upstairs, and, since he knows my tendency to forget about it and leave it in there until it's cold again (gah, yes Mom, I do that too now, sorry for making fun of you all those years), he brought it upstairs to me. So even on his guy's night in he's looking out for and taking care of me. Love that man.

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Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig!

It's the 17th of March! One of my favorite days of the year! It's St. Patrick's Day!

Talked to my sister in Ireland this morning. It was awesome and I told her that I basically hate her. Well, not really. Really I'm just crazy jealous. I told her I'm thinking of maybe making Shepherd's Pie for dinner, and she said "Sounds good. Irishy. I think we're having ribs, but really whatever we eat is Irish, so it works." Bitch.

Kidding, Kels! Love you!

You know, once I quit a job because they wouldn't give me St. Patrick's day weekend off. I had already planned a trip back home to Boston to watch the parade and I had tickets to see the Dropkick Murphys! It was planned BEFORE I took that stinkin' job at that stinkin' pub! Who woulda thought that an Irish pub wouldn't honor any requests for time off in the entire month of March...

Today though, no need to quit the job. Things are good. Had my OB appt today... he told me I was 32 weeks along, which well, awesome. I thought I was only 31. That NEVER happens to me. Somehow they gave me my old due date back? Now it's the 12th? (Which sort of screws up the whole "counting down the pregnancy with episodes of LOST", but hey. Who the hell knows what's going on in that show anyways. Do I really WANT to associate my pregnancy with that malarky? That's right. I said malarky. Wait, am I still in parentheses?)

So. 32 weeks. And they had to move the big chunk on the bottom of the scale over, which is always a low point for me. I've crossed that 150 threshold and then a little more. I've gained 25lbs so far this pregnancy, which ugh. With Fiona I gained like 27 lbs TOTAL. I'm at 25 and I still have 8 weeks to go? Crippity crap. I'm gonna go over 30. Blargh. My mom was so kind to say to me this morning, "oh wow, I think I only went up over 150 with one of the girls." Uhhhhh thanks but SHUT UP ya SKINNY MINNY CHICKEN LEG WOMAN! One of my calves weighs the same as your whole torso, so can it.

Other than that slightly depressing news, things are looking good. Everything is measuring what it should measure and heartbeats are good and strong and all that stuff.

ALSO, the weather has decided to stop being crappy and finally get nice and springy again. Doing a picnic at the playground with friends for lunch today, and tomorrow as well. This weekend its supposed to be sunny and get into the 70s? Yes please. Wearing my flip-flops today and it was only like 45 degrees this morning.

Well. Baby is down for her nap and I have things to do. Enjoy the day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day from my wee Irish lass!

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Cookies

Nate and I started dating a little over 4 years ago. Obviously, we have learned many things about each other since then. He knows that I sometimes chew with my mouth open, I know that he leaves dirty socks EVERYWHERE, he know I like to always have a glass of water at bedtime and I know that he can sometimes soothe a headache by flossing his teeth.

So when I went to order this year's batch of Girl Scout cookies, I confidently ordered a box of my favorites (Samoas), a box of his favorites (Tagalongs), a box of Thin Mints (cause I think that's a law, that you have to), and a box of Trefoils (because they go so well with a nice cup of tea). The cookies got here, hurrah, and I occasionally put a few Tagalongs in with his lunch, while saving the Samoas for myself because I do love them so.

The other night I was at the grocery store, buying some ice cream in celebration of our having a working freezer once again (!) and I saw that Edy's was on sale! And that they had limited edition Girl Scout Cookie flavors! Nate loves limited edition ice cream flavors! Perfect! I grabbed 2 cartons- Samoas and Tagalongs. Our favorites. Raced home all excited, pulled them out of the grocery bag, all "Look, look what I got! Aren't you thrilled??!?!"

A bit later, once the baby was in bed and we went to dish up the ice cream, I was surprised to see Nate opening up the Samoa ice cream first. I was a bit peeved. Here I was, I bought his favorite kind for him, and he doesn't even want to try it? What the hell is that about. So I asked him, "I bought the Tagalong kind especially for you, don't you want that?"

And he says "yeah, but Samoas are my favorite, so I wanted to try this kind first."

???????

Really? If I didn't know what his favorite was, that would be totally understandable. I mean, it's not a requirement to know things like favorite cookie flavor. But I was SO SURE about it. I felt like SUCH an idiot. Here I was, hoarding the Samoas for myself, completely without guilt because hey, I bought him a box of his favorites and I haven't had a single one. Fair is fair. Now I find out that nope. Dead wrong. You think you know someone...

I would also like to report that while I have not yet managed to go grocery shopping, I did go and pick up all our frozen/defrosted/refrozen into solid blocks foods, so we have some options for mealtimes again. And so tonight in keeping with my decision to do better about making dinner, I made dinner. I had a little helper. It was adorable.

Don't worry Gramma, I didn't actually let her take anything out. She just wanted to wear the mitts and walk around the kitchen saying "Hot hot hot" every time I opened the oven.

And Nate- I'm sorry for hogging all the Samoa goodness for the past four years. I'll be sure to put some in your lunch tomorrow.

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March

February has come and gone, with it tons and tons and feet of snow, most of which has now melted. Our tiny little yard looked like a battleground after the snow disappeared... big tree branches all over the place, a thousand little piles of dog turds, not to mention all the pine needles and leaves that we never raked up in the fall... Nate and I spent all this past weekend (which was GORGEOUS) outside raking and raking and bagging and it looks so much better now, even if there still isn't any grass...

Last week we also had an interesting couple of days when our fridge decided, after months of making this really annoying loud clonking noise, to die completely. Of course, I didn't realize it until it had been dead for so long that all the frozen food was totally defrosted...thank goodness for friends with deep freezers with space. All the fridge food was loaded into coolers with bags and bags of ice... this was Thursday. They finally delivered our new fridge yesterday, and it's so shiny and clean and new and COLD and it's just fantastic.

This morning Nate took off work and the three of us went to a Rocknoceros concert at Jammin' Java. Sounds kinda lame, but it's actually a really good time. Babygirl is slow to warm up to the idea of concert, staying close to Mama and Daddy at first, but after a while she enjoys getting up there and being part of the action.






Fi wasn't SO much into the dancing while I was shooting this little video, she was a bit more intent on sticking her hand inside the back of her diaper. Which was actually kind of embarassing. She has become kinda fascinated with that lately. In the past couple weeks, we've had three instances of "I'm done napping and now I think it would be fun to reach into my dirty diaper and make a poop painting on the sheets of my crib..wheeee Mama isn't this fun!??!?!" Yesterday she tried it at the end of her morning nap, but was thwarted by the zip-up footie pajamas. Although she made a valiant effort and managed to get one arm outside of jammies. She is too much.



In completely unrelated news, I haven't given any updates regarding baby numero dos recently... that's probably because everything is progressing just fine, no issues beyond the fact that I'm a little anemic and tend to be a bit hypoglycemic. Neither of which is surprising, I've always tended that way. Just means I need to eat frequent small meals and take an iron pill. I'm also supposed to take it easy on things like sugar and white flour and simple carbs... all those things that make up delicious snacks. Instead I have to do proteiny complex carb things. Like wheat pitas and hummus. And hardboiled eggs. Which isn't as delicious as bagels or candy, but still pretty good. I'm 30 weeks along now, so we have entered the final stretch, the final 10 weeks. I'm actually counting down using LOST episodes, because there are only 10 left till the end... the final episode is slated to air May 23rd, and I'm slated to have this kid May 18th. We'll just have to wait and see which finishes first- this pregnancy, or a show that we belatedly only got into last summer and has sucked us in like none other. I've got my next appt in a week, I'll od my best to update again at that point, maybe even including a how much have a gained type update?

I've also decided to become better about cooking dinner again. I was doing so well back in the fall, and then it fell away to NOTHING. I saw this cookbook in the checkout aisle at the grocery store (I fall for that stuff Every. Time.) and it caught my eye. "Fix It and Forget It. 200 Slowcooker recipes using 5 ingredients or less." The way I see it- I have both energy and time in the mornings. In the evenings I've got time, but I'm also usually beat. Getting up the energy to make dinner just seems like a monumentous effort. So if I slowcooker it, I can prepare dinner earlier in the day when I've still got some get up and go and then I can still be tired and blargh in the late afternoon and yet manage to get some actual dinner on the table. I went through the book and marked a bunch of recipes that looked tasty, added the ingredients to my shopping list, so we'll see how it all turns out... I'm hopeful.

On that note, I need to go get a little snack and then maybe a bit of a nap while Fi is still sleeping... here's hoping.

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15 months

Well, little chickie had her 15 month checkup today. The doc was all "Oh wow, she's walking, that's so great!" and I was like "Phsaw. Old news. Her new thing is saying 'Hot! Hot! Hot!' anytime we sit down to eat or when she sees me cooking at the stove or drinking tea." She's not too thrilled this afternoon, she had to have a total of 3 shots- two in her leg and one in her arm. So she's a bit cranky and nap-refusy. Which means there's no time for a lengthy entry here. I just wanted to give the stats from the doc.

15 months old.
29 1/2 inches tall (25%)
18lbs2oz (>5%)

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Snow. and Snow.

Yesterday Nate left at 5am to catch a cab. A cab to the airport. To catch a plane to SanFran and then on to Shanghai. This morning at 10am we videochatted with that fool who'd stayed up until 11pm after traveling halfway around the world, just to say good morning to us. He'll be gone a week, and we already miss him around here, but it sounds like he is going to have a really great trip, and we should be able to talk a few more times throughout the week. Thank goodness for Google videochat.

Also this morning at 9am, it started snowing. Just flurries at first, I thought it wouldn't add up to much of anything. Then it picked up, and kept snowing the whole entire day long. After lunch I took the little one outside to play. We walked down to the mailbox, picked up the mail and stuck it in the back of babygirl's sled. Her gorgeous little wooden sled on metal runners that her Great-Grandpa Troutman made. Made from a sled that was Grandma's when she was a little girl. So it's a pretty special sled. And she absolutely loves it. Sitting in the sled, walking in the snow, eating the snow... she seems to be a cold weather girl.

Catching snowflakes on her tongue.

Now she's down for the count and I've cozied myself up on the couch for another evening of solo TV watching. Though I've cut myself off from doing anything like watching 4 episodes of Criminal Minds right before going to bed... I couldn't fall asleep for anything last night. Every little noise I would open my eyes, all "oh NO! It's an intruder! A rapist! A murderer! A kidnapper!" Normally I can watch things that freak me out, and then later when I start to get all pathetic and creeped out I just scoot over to Nate's side of the bed and while he doesn't wake up, he's still enough to reassure me that I just have an overactive imagination, and that everything is normal and fine and okay and it's just the wind, for crying out loud. But not last night. I was all on my own. So tonight it's just straight home renovation shows. Maybe a little Hoarders. Those will let me sleep.

And now, even though it's kind of chilly in here, I've got a hankering for some ice cream. So I am about to go serve up some mint chocolate chip and I will leave you with some comparison pictures.

Making a snow angel on patio table last March.

Making a snow angel today... though I did still have to move her arms and legs.

Last year she wasn't so sure about the whole idea of snow.

This year she looooooves it.

Oh, and PS? The girl is 15 months old today. 15 whole months. She's got her checkup on Monday, so be prepared to be regaled with all sorts of stats and percentiles as to just how tiny she still is.

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