The Happenings.

So, instead of having a baby this week, we've visited with family and friends, which has been very fun. Here's a picture of when Aunt Mindy came to visit and painted Chick's toenails : )

I also went to the thrift store on Monday, and bought a non-maternity skirt for me. I also bought a few baby items, and 2 suit jackets for $1 each (with plans to make a couple of THESE cutie patootie hats ...though smaller if I can manage it). Oh, and a big bag of crocheted pieces...mostly squares and a few random flowers. Unfortunately there weren't any hats, but I guess I'll just buy neutral hats and pin flowers on separately.

I've also done a surprising amount of freezer cooking. I made 2 sheets FULL of meatballs, and blended up tons of spinach for spinach ice cubes to use in smoothies. I froze strawberries (also for smoothies), and made 4 loaves of braided bread (though seriously, my mixer does all the work...I did 2 loaves and discovered that it took almost completely no work from me, so I did 2 more loaves). And I made some raisin bran muffins. Today I think I'll do granola bars if I feel industrious enough.

Anyhow, Chick had her last day of preschool yesterday. The mamas were invited for a celebration at the end. They got Grad necklaces & diplomas, sang songs that they've learned over the year, ate special treats, and were sent home with cute packets with their class picture and such. It was so much fun : )

Yesterday, as a condolence prize (since I wasn't getting a baby) I went and got a pedicure. Then I picked up pizza for dinner & rented a couple of movies.

Today we'll watch The Princess & the Frog (I've been holding out on that one because in the pictures she's the most immodest of all of the princesses -except Jasmine- and I hate that Chick thinks that you dress immodestly if you are a princess). Anyhow, I should probably do laundry and g-bars, and I hope to do some sewing and napping. And my aunt will take the girls for a little visit to the mall playground, so I'll get some alone time : )

Just waiting.

Nothing to report. No baby.

On Friday I just sat around--we watched "The Wizard of Oz" and took naps and that's about it. I tried to take a walk by myself...I think I might have gone a mile total, but by the time I returned home I was barely waddling & felt like my hips and/or pelvis were about to fall apart.

Saturday I did some laundry & cleaning, and HH worked on basetrim & deck railing.

Today was church. Also, during the insomnia hours of the morning I FINISHED COMPLETELY Monkey's baby book. The first year is entirely done, so the baby can come anytime now.

And for dinner we had Chicken nuggets with yummy peach sauce (THIS recipe, which is quadrupled for freezing). I made a few alterations: less butter, I baked them on a rack rather than directly on the cooking sheet, I substituted bran flakes for some of the bread crumbs, and I broiled them for a few minutes at the end to get them crispy. Everyone ate them & seemed to like them. They're definitely best with the sauce (didn't try them with ketchup, though...maybe they'd be good that way too). Since I've decided to boycott Tyson chicken as well as all store-bought nuggets (except maybe T. Joes...I'll have to look into that), I'm glad that these turned out well.

I don't have pictures of the scrapbook, but here's a picture of the most recent baby gown, which was made using a high school track tee (both parents are athletic, and the dad teaches & coaches track at Jackson High School). (HERE is the tutorial, for those of you who wanted it. Seriously, super easy). It looks like that's winning the poll, so I'll be making another one soon to have on the display table for F.F.

Hmm, I guess that's it. I have more little projects to work on until the baby arrives, but now that the scrapbook is done I don't have anything urgent...so the baby can come...preferably on Tuesday (5-25-10).

New Poll... please vote

Ok, I haven't gotten a lot of feedback on what to offer to teach for Fantastic Friday, so I'm putting up a poll. Here are the options:

1. Changing pad with storage pocket

pros-- easy & makes a great gift so it would appeal to a larger group

cons-- kinda boring to teach

2. Baby gown from a t-shirt

pros-- same as above

cons-- ?

3. Girls shirt dress

pros-- super fun to see what others come up with, exciting to teach, fun for me to practice & make some in advance

cons-- measurements/pattern adjusting for many people might be tricky, appeals to a smaller crowd

4. Potholder first aid kit

pros-- easy, universally appealing

cons-- I haven't actually made one yet, so I don't know the cons. This would be the most expensive project, too.

It's the Little (and big) things.

First off: baby update. Still waiting. One more week. I'm still at a 2, baby was at 0 station at my last appt, and I still have a soft cervix but no real effacement.

Today I'm thinking that maybe it's a girl...I might be thinking that just because I thought of what I would want to try for a blessing dress : )

But also, a boy is problematic. We don't have a solid name for a boy. The name that we've had written on the white board in the kitchen for months now is falling out of favor with me, and I found out that HH isn't completely sold on it either. Unfortunately HH doesn't like any of the other names that I suggest. I just called and left a new suggestion on his voicemail, so we'll see what he has to say about that. A girl would be easier because I LOVE our girl name. I even love the crazy nickname that Aunt Becky would give her (Chi-chi. Crazy but cute!).

Anyhow, this morning I was toasting bagels, and bagels made me think of "Have you heard about the Morgans" which I saw the other night. If you haven't seen it, they're a NY couple who witness a murder & are put in the witness protection program. I was reminded of this one scene and it had me laughing semi-hysterically for several minutes...so I'm sharing.

They've just arrived in the little Wyoming town that they're hiding in, and they are in the car with their host. They're talking about a store there (Bargain Barn)

Meryl: I've never been to a Bargain Barn.
Host: You're kidding. (or something to that effect)
Meryl: No, I've never been to a Bargain Barn. There aren't any Bargain Barns in New York.
Host: I don't follow you.
Meryl: Well, there aren't any Bargain Barns in New York, so I've never been to one.
Host: I still don't follow you.
Meryl: (totally exasperated, and enunciating every word) THERE AREN'T ANY BARGAIN BARNS IN NEW YORK, SO I'VE NEVER BEEN TO ONE.
Meryl's Husband: There aren't any in Chicago, either, which is where we're from. (because of the new identities).
Host: Oh, you don't say.

Anyhow, I'm sure that didn't translate to funny on my blog, but just hearing Sarah Jessica Parker trying to get him to understand her as she keeps saying the exact same thing (because, really, how do you say it any more plainly?) was pretty darn funny. And anything that gives me a good laugh when we're late for preschool has got to be a good thing, right?

So that was the "little" thing.

The "big" thing is a quote that I heard in church on Mother's day. I don't want to forget it, so I'm putting it in here. The speaker told the following about Peter Buffett (son of Warren Buffet):

Though $90,000 was the only inheritance Peter Buffett received from his father for personal use, he and his siblings have received an enormous sum of money -- $1 billion -- to do charitable work. That money came as something of a surprise, and Peter was taken aback by the "awesome responsibility and opportunity."

He says he and his wife spent several years researching how to be most effective as philanthropists. Ultimately, they settled on a charitable way to "invest in undervalued assetts," which Peter Buffett admits is a "page out of my Dad's book."

"We found that young girls, adolescent girls-- in the developing world in particular--are the greatest undervalued assett we've ever seen," Buffett says. (NPR. To read more about it, here's the link)

I figured it out!

Yesterday was another "Oh! This feels just like the other day but I SWEAR this is real!" I was having what felt like constant ligament pain, which lasted for hours during church. Then when we were driving home I started having contractions. A couple of hours later they eased off, and I was left wondering...am I really that easy to fool?! (Thankfully I only called my Mom to say that MAYBE this was it...no sleepovers this time).

This morning I realized: It's the smoothies! My sister is starting at Bastyr soon to become a nutritionist and bought my Mom a smoothie recipe book at the Bastyr bookstore. Mom lent it to me. The grape & strawberry popsicles are going to be a HUGE hit today...HH and I took sips of the leftover bit, unfrozen but SO VERY DELICIOUS! And so easy.

Anyhow, I digress. For myself I made the smoothie that has raspberry leaf tea in it. Raspberry is supposed to be a uterine toner--it doesn't start labor, but it helps your uterus to be stronger, so a shorter pushing phase & less chance of hemorrhage (as well as other complications), and it also helps with milk production for new moms.

On Wednesday night and again on Saturday night I drank this smoothie--each smoothie had about a cup of tea in it (among other ingredients).

This morning I made the connection that Thursday and Sunday...about 12-14 hours post-smoothie were when I had so much going on, but at the same time so little going on : ) Sunday's episode lasted a shorter time than Thursday, I assume because I needed less toning the second time. But that explains why I didn't dilate at all, but I did have contractions.

This is still an untested hypothesis...I'll drink some more smoothie tomorrow night and see if Wednesday has the same results (I don't really want to feel like that tomorrow--too much going on). Some might say that I should just stay away from it altogether, based on the difficulty of the results, but I do think that the results will lessen as my system gets stronger. We'll see on Wednesday.

******
Unrelated: I'm down to 3 2-pg layouts + 2 partial pages for Monkey's book!!

Impromptu Sleepover

On Thursday night I had a little sleepover. The guest list included: Charlotte (my midwife), Carmen & Stephanie (Charlotte's backup midwife & assistant), and my Mom. They all came at around 2 or 3 a.m., and all but my Mom left at 6:30 a.m., because it was really not that exciting of a sleepover.

HH helped to decorate for it by putting up a pool in our bedroom, and then he went to work later than normal. I had hoped that he wouldn't be going to work at all on Friday, but since there wasn't much going on & the sleepover was breaking up, he went ahead and left.

All in all the sleepover was anticlimactic. In fact, though I still can't believe it, I measured a 2 on Wednesday morning, and then at the end of the sleepover I still measured a 2.

I've decided that this sleepover is the downside to a homebirth--you can't just be sent home & it's quite embarrassing.

I refuse to call it what some might (the opposite of TRUE), because though I thought that maybe I'd made the calls a bit prematurely I thought FOR SURE that this was IT. AND PLEASE no one leave a comment saying "You'll know it when it's time" because this is my 3rd time and I really did think that Thursday night was IT.

But, though my measurement didn't change, and the contractions went away eventually, I am no longer getting kicked up near my ribcage...the kicks are now closer to my lack-of-bellybutton (which is incredibly sore now). So I don't know if that's a common thing, but I do think that things contracted down & the baby is more scrunched than before. ...maybe it's just wishful thinking. I'm doubting everything now. What do I know?

Oh, but at around midnight that night I did lose my mucus plug (sorry, TMI?). Kind of exciting. HH says that I saw it when I was expecting Chick, but I really don't remember ever seeing one. So now it's documented. Thank your lucky stars that I'm not such a hard-core blogger that I would take pictures, lol.

Anyhow, here's a picture of me, in what I thought was early labor at the start of week 38.

Here are my cute girls.

Here's the picture wall : ) I still have one more frame to fill--it's going to have an applique in it, but I haven't made it yet.

Here's a before pic of the center frame.

Right now HH is working on putting railings on our back deck. We had a picnic lunch in the backyard, and Chick and I went to a super fun birthday party for one of her friends from preschool & church.

I've spent my free time this week working on Monkey's baby book, which I hope to finish before having another baby join in the fray. I'll post some pictures of my handiwork when I feel more inclined to take pics. I've gotten 10 pages done (5 2-pg layouts) + finishing up some that had things missing. I still have at least that much left to do, though, so I'd better go get busy.

And for the record, I'm guessing that this baby is a boy. What do you think?

Oh, but before I go, I've been asked to teach a project at Fantastic Friday at church. It needs to be something that can get done in an evening...what project would you want to do at a Fantastic Friday (uh, that I've done...I know, that narrows things down a lot)?

My Chickadee.

Some things about Chick:

• She always says "gonna" twice. i.e. "I'm gonna gonna get you!"


• She recently went from saying "yeyyow" to "lellow" but very rarely can say "yellow" (at least she doesn't ever say "leyyow").


• Yesterday she had the hiccups and said, "I can't get the hiccups out of my body!"


• She is constantly singing. Often the same line or two over and over again. She surprises me by singing songs that I didn't know that she'd learned, but most often she sings songs from Mary Poppins.


• She likes to match. She likes to match her clothes to her sister's. She likes to match her clothing to those being worn on a show that she's watching (meaning that the white dress gets worn a lot because Mary Poppins & Hello Kitty & anyone getting married all wear white dresses. The blue dress gets worn for Cinderella).


• She is extremely sweet with her sister (within reason...she's still a stinky little 3 year old sometimes) and is SUCH the first child & wants to mother Monkey. It really bothers Chick that Monkey only wants Mama or Daddy when she first wakes up from a nap.


• The other day I was lifting something that was a little bit heavy, and she reminded me that it could hurt the baby.


• She says "P starts with Please" instead of the other way around.

(Chick reading her magazine to her baby dolls)

She's a caring little soul. This story is a little more personal than I usually share on this blog, but I want to get it written down.

The other day she stepped on a caterpillar that we'd been watching/holding. She did it on purpose, and I was horror-struck. Honestly, pregnancy hormones are raging. I started crying, and I'm afraid I made her feel really bad. I don't know why she stepped on it, but I'm sure she didn't really think about the ramifications of such an act...she's not a vicious little person. Anyhow, her grief-stricken mama explained to her that the caterpillar was fragile and we had to be careful with it, and now it was going to die. She walked away and wouldn't come back to me...and then she burst into tears. We hugged and talked about how the caterpillar would be happy in Heaven, and that she didn't mean to hurt it... but the first thing that she told HH when he got home was about the caterpillar.

She seemed normal, but then when she had been in bed for a while she started crying (SOBBING) and saying "I hurt the caterpillar!" over and over. I gave her hugs and repeated that she hadn't meant to do it, and the caterpillar was happy in Heaven with Heavenly Father and Jesus-- but I could tell that my words weren't doing much for her. Then I thought of all of the great moms that I see around me & the teaching moments that they have, and I decided that I had a good teaching moment in front of me.

So I explained about repentance. I told her that we all make mistakes sometimes, but that we can pray and ask Heavenly Father to forgive us. I helped her with just such a prayer, and she went to bed pacified.

Then I went back out to the kitchen and said my own prayer. That she'd have a confirmation of the peace that comes through heartfelt prayer. That she'd not be haunted by being a "caterpillar killer" or anything like that. That she'd understand that Heavenly Father was real and was listening when she talked. That I could be a better mother and not traumatize my children, who were innocent anyhow...kids are kids, after all.

I don't know what she felt or learned from her prayer (I know she liked it, because the next night she asked if we could say the "caterpillar prayer" again. lol). But I know what I felt and learned from MY prayer.

The answer to my prayer was that I really didn't even need to be asking Heavenly Father to "be sure and listen to my child", because my dear little Chickadee is HIS child. He knows her better than I do. It's hard to imagine, but He loves her far more than I EVER will. He wants her be be at peace and to know that she can pray to Him, even more than I want it for her. He knows that I'm not a perfect mother, but that I try. And He knew that I wouldn't be a perfect mother all along, but He still trusted me enough to take care of these precious little people.

Mostly I felt relief, though, that HH and I aren't the only ones looking out for Chick.

Winsome

adj. Charming, often in a childlike way.

(she clomped around the house with one red shoe on backwards for most of the day yesterday)

Getting some Closure

Friday evening/night I had a lot of contractions. They weren't especially strong, but they did persist regardless of change in activity, and in the early morning hours they were pretty regular & seemed stronger than earlier. The tricky things had me fooled--I even called my midwife at 4 in the morning (she'd rather be called with a false alarm than not have ample warning since she has to drop everything that she had planned).

Anyhow, it was a false alarm (and I'm SOOO glad it was because all of my family was going down to my uncle's memorial-- 2+ hours away, and who would come help out?!!). I was pretty excited thinking that the baby was coming, but I had one thing that really bothered me to not have done: the closet doors.

After that night of poor sleep, HH gave me my Mother's Day breakfast in bed a day early : ) and then I fell back asleep and slept until almost 10:30!! Unheard of. It was wonderful.

Then, to make the day even better, HH spent the whole day painting and hanging the closet doors for me : ) They don't have handles in yet, but here are some pictures (complete with a crazy baby).

HH thinks that the room is boring now, with "nothing to look at" ...as if I want to look at clothes hanging in the closet & storage boxes on the shelf! To remedy the "boringness" I ordered prints of some pictures to finally get that photo arrangement finished. Stay tuned.

So yesterday was really the great mother's day, but today has been a lovely, sunny Sunday. Chocolates and a cute framed picture of chick that she decorated in nursery at church : ) A stop at the park to watch the stream for a few minutes, a very refreshing nap after church, and HH took the girls out into the yard while I made dinner (plus extras for freezing) in much appreciated solitude.

a little home refashion

I finished a little basket refashion:

before

after

Also, HH put up the new dining room chandelier this weekend : ) Obviously we still have the ceiling to do, but that can't be done until we redo the kitchen cabinets (because we're taking down a wall at that time)...baby steps, folks. (He also got the lumber for the deck railing, which will be a HUGE comfort to me with these little people running about).

I've also gotten all of the frames up in my room, but some are still empty.... A couple will have temporary pictures in them until later this summer--there's no way I'm taking a family picture with me huge at the end of the pregnancy (and lacking one imminent family member). Anyhow, I'll post pictures of that wall soon...and wouldn't it be nice if we could get the darn closet doors up for the picture too? (Not to mention getting the closet doors up for the birth that will take place in there!).

Speaking of birth, on Monday I was dilated to 1.5 and was "soft." I guess I'm glad to not be further along at this point--I start layout today so I don't want to have the baby until after next Wednesday. Oh, and the baby's heartbeat is totally normal now : )

untitled.

The quilt is done. I ended up doing a 1/4" border in red, and then binding in green. I liked the all green in the back, but the front needed more red to bring it together, so I think this is a good compromise.

And here is the most recent prego picture. 3 1/2 weeks to go. Tonight is my midwife appt. It'll be a fun one--I'll have a pelvic exam to see how things are progressing, and HH gets the schpeal on "what to do if you have to deliver the baby by yourself in an emergency."

When Life Gives You...

6 eggs in a pan, cracked open by your 3-yr old before you dragged yourself out of bed--make German Pancakes.(I tried to not look TOO impressed that she successfully cracked open 6 eggs, put them into the pan without spilling more than a drop or two, and threw the shells in the garbage! I also tried to convince her to always ASK before she gets eggs out.) BTW, the german pancakes were a huge hit. Everyone ate theirs, and Chick had about 4 servings!