Massive Update

Lot's going on

I love being a stay at home mom- I really do- but every once in a while I feel suffocated and need to get away. I think it mostly comes about when Eric has to work weekends- which is not unsual. This weekend was really rough b/c I was not feeling well at all- and he has a huge thing due on Monday. He was great Saturday, and got up with B and hung with him through gymboree (so noon), but then he had to go in. Today he has been in since 10:30 and it is 7pm no and he just said on the phone he will be a while. I am not complaining about him- because really it sucks for both of us, not just me.

Speaking of getting away- I left B and Eric alone for an entire weekend. My boys were on their own from noon on a Friday until I returned around midnight on Sunday evening. They did great and I *think* Eric has a greater appreciation for how my days are now. Leaving was a big deal for me b/c I am a control freak- and no, all my 'instructions' were not followed- but they lived, slept, ate and had fun so in the end- who cares? It was really good for them- Eric has never taken B anywhere besides within 2 blocks of our house. This is not as bad as it sounds considering we live in a city and everything is right here- gymboree, market, park, etc- but still. He got to experience packing him up and they went down the shore.

Where did I go you ask? Over 2.5 years ago I joined a board called Getting Pregnant on The Bump. I became super close with a lot of girls who I refer to as my friends- they are not just internet strangers to me, but people who know everything about me and who I share all of the ups and downs of life with. We have been through so much together and I am so lucky to be part of such an amazing group of women. I went to Arizona for a GTG with them- we came from all over the country- WA, CA, MA, PA, OH, KS (is that Kansas LOL?) and more. It was such an amazing weekend- I love these girls so much!

Pregnancy wise- things are going well. Hard to believe I am in the double digits weeks wise this week- it is flying. I am feeling pretty well, although I do have my days where I heave and sometimes puke. It is unpredictable- if I didn't feel great the whole time with B this would worry me, but fortunately it doesn't. I go for my NT on 8/11- my bday. Fingers crossed everything loks good. I have tried to hear the HB on my home doppler- but no luck. That is no surprise at all since I am not even 10 weeks and have an extra fluff layer. I am supposed to see my parents next weekend so was hoping to pick it up by then- but who knows. With B I didn't get it until around 13 weeks- but I had an anterior placenta so don't know if that was part of it.
I will keep trying- it isn't freaking me out at this point :)

Life is busy- Brooks learned how to break out of baby jail and is into EVERYTHING he can get to. I am going to go to BRU or BBB this week to pick up a lot of childproofing stuff. I thought babyjail would help prevent the need to do everything, but the kid is too smart :)

A while ago, you may recall that we set up 'baby jail' in the living room. 2 sides were a gate and the other 2 sides the sectional.

In less than 10 minutes he managed to do all this:

First he used his stool to help him walk to the stairs

Then he abandoned the stool in order to climb the stairs.
This was quickly stopped and he was brought back down- so he went to the hutch to open all the cabinets. He started pulling stuff out, but that was stopped as well since there are a lot of breakables

Anything he can open and close is a lot of fun

He looked outside for a bit

Took his tray off his high chair to play with

Proceeded to head to the kitchen where I put a chair as a psuedo-gate to keep him away from the dog food.

Made quick work of my 'gate'

And got to the dogfood anyway


After a slight crying tantrum over being removed from the kitchen he headed to the bathroom. If the toilet seat is not down, he will splash in the water.

The trash can in the downstairs bathroom is lots of fun




2 other life lessons from this week-

While grocery shopping, a croissant may seem like an easy idea for occupying the baby- however, it is VERY messy. (if you could have seen his hair up close- yuk- people in the store thought it was hysterical)


And- don't mess with a boy and his Cheeze Its

WALKING update! Brooks is taking steps every day now. He doesn't go far and he is still wobbly and falls onto whatever he is stepping towards- but it is practice and I know that soon enough he will be zipping everywhere. I took a little video of some of his steps :)

And lastly- a picture story about Brooks' first haircut. Many of my readers have prob seen all of these pics on FB, but oh well- even though there are a bunch I am putting them here b/c I love it and to have it down :).

In case you didn't remember- I really needed a haircut- I was beginning to look a little shaggy, and people were calling me a lovely girl!

So we went to a real old fashioned Barbershop- Ralph's - where Daddy grew up getting his hair cut!


Daddy kept talking about Rosie- a famous carousel horse that kids get to sit on from the 1800's. Mommy and me were really excited- and then we saw her. Sorry Rosie, but you were pretty disappointing.

Chuck cut my hair- in case you can't tell by my face here, I had doubt as to how it would go from someone with a goatee like that!

First he spritzed me with water and I was unsure what to think




Then he had to comb my hair because it was a mess


It really tickled when he combed my hair



Finally he was ready to cut- and it really wasn't so bad!





And then... he whipped out the electric razor- I was not a fan... at all!





I definitely did not like this goatee man anymore!




The bakery next door gave me a free cookie to help me get over my razor trauma! And mommy took lots of pics to show what a big boy I look like! She thinks I look a lot like my Daddy in these pictures!

steps

3.5 of them to be exact- B walked to me! I don't think he has a clue he did it and don't think it will be repeated anytime soon, but I stood him up about 2 feet from me and he took 3 steps and a 4th falling one onto me. Usually it is one step to fall on top of me- but he did 3 first! YAY YAY YAY this makes me feel a little better :)


In other news- we had our dating u/s for Squeaks. We saw a gorgeous little baby with arm buds and a healthy heartbeat of 163 BPM. I was measuring 3-4 days behind when I ovulated, so the official due date on record with my Dr. is 2/25/10. I am going to use that as my EDD, even though I know that it is really 2/21 or 22 based on O. It will just be easier to use the same date all over the place, and it is kind of nice to have 3-4 extra days to have the baby without hearing pressure about induction or anything. I was a little concerned about measuring behind- and believe me I am sure on the dates. This isn't just knowing when my period was and being off from that, this is knowing when I conceived. However, they only did an abdominal u/s. So given the huge margin for error if they click just a fraction of a teeny bit of an inch over, plus given the fact they did abdominal which is way less clear than vaginal, I am thinking that it is normal to be off. I am shocked they didn't go vaginal- I am early, and I am overweight. But it doesn't matter- b/c in the end our baby was there, the heart was flickering, and things looked good!

When she left the room to get a pic for us I took a short video with my digicam. It is super short b/c I didn't know when she was coming back and b/c it was a looped film so there wasn't much to tape since it kept repeating (plus at this point- it all kind of looks the same)



Next week I am going to redo the layout of the blog- update the monthly pics, add fresh tickers, and get everything going!

Mommy Doubt & 2nd Pg

I am tired- exhausted. B is shifting towards one nap- which would be fine, except he is waking for the day at 5:30, then passing out from about 8:30-11 ish. Then he won't take an afternoon nap and is just not very pleasant company for the evening. It is making me want to scream. I am wondering if I should wake him from that long stretch so he will take an afternoon nap- I may try that, it couldn't hurt to have one bad day if it doesn't work to find out if it solves that. Tracking shows my blackout curtains arriving this week- maybe those will help too!

Mommy guilt: I know B seems to be doing well and I think he is smart, then I hear about the kids his age walking, brushing their teeth/hair in imitation, holding cell phones to their ears, using a spoon on their own (including the dipping of it into food), saying tons of words, etc and B isn't doing that. Even though rationally I know he is on track, my heart wants to cry and I worry what I am doing wrong and if me being a SAHM is going to hinder him and he isn't learning enough. I would have thought he would be doing something mobility or vocab wise now. One of his super smarty things though that he has been doing is he will play catch with you with a ball- his aim kind of stinks, but he totally 'throws' it back and forth. Oh- and he is climbing full flights of stairs (but has no clue how to go down, and if he gets tired just tries to sit, but there is no room for his butt on the step, so will fall if no one is behind him)

Weaning- I am down to nursing once a day. He has the chronic runs from cow's milk. The ped wants us to keep on the cow's and decrease the amount and add in bindng foods. Getting this kid to eat is such a challenge that I am just frustrated.

2nd pg- wow is it different from the first! I am nauseous every day- have thrown up a few times, and dry heaved the other days. And when I say dry heave, I mean like gasping trying to toss up my stomach. Do you know what an odd sensation it is to throw up a glass of ice water 5 minutes after you drink it? It is still super cold and so weird. I only threw up twice with B- Christmas Eve (I blame the heavy dinner) and during labor... At first I was all like, yay morning sickness, reassuring! I am over that and would like a sick free pg back.
Additionally- today I am 8 weeks- I have known for over 4 weeks. I cannot believe how much faster this time is going and how much calmer I am nerves wise. I know leading up to appointments I will be a nutcase, but I am less anxious. Probably b/c I have B so have some sort of confidence that my body can do this, unlike with B where my prior experience was a c/p. Also, I just don't have much time to think about it.'
I also think I am showing already. I don't mean a stranger would look at me and know I am pg, but if you knew I was pg you could see a belly. I am overweight to begin with, but there is a bump that cannot be sucked in and is in a new spot. I know it must be bloat, although people do show earlier with their 2nd pgs, but it kind of amazes me how obvious it is to me at this point. Even DH said something.

Prepare yourselves for an update Wednesday- I have an u/s in the morning! I had my first ob appt and b/c my BF'ing and my insistance of dates being off (which they are) she is having me get the pg dated. Normal practice in my group is only the anatomy scan (so wow that I got to have an early u/s with B), so I am lucky. I also scheduled the NT for early August.
woohoooooo

And I will leave you this video of my babe's new trick- How big is Brooks?





I call this set of pictures a study of how desperately this kid needs a haircut! (and no- it doesn't always look this bad- I brushed it out to show how long it is) We are going tomorrow for his 1st cut at the same barbershop Eric went to growing up- finally!




And here are belated pictures of our 4th of July baby- we forgot to put the hat on last week (the hat is so big it even fits Eric's huge head).

4th of July Weekend!

We hope everyone had as nice a weekend as we did. We had a wonderful family weekend

Saturday: On Saturday we went to brunch at a restaurant called Supper. Our neighbors behind us own this (the husband is the chef) and it is really, really good. Brooks had key lime pie french toast (french toast in graham cracker crumbs with some keylime sauce- YUM). He was very intrigued by the chandelier of kitchen equiptment they had there :)


When we left brunch- we passed Batman- gotta love South Street



But also- there was a place we had never noticed before called 'Philadelphia Magic Gardens'. It was really cool- the whole place was a mosaic of glass, plates, bottles, etc. The entire building sparkled- and it went below ground with glass floors and all. The pictures don't really do it justice because the sunlight on the building was insane- B was mesmerized.






The only weird thing about this place- was there were penis' everywhere. Bizarre


Later we went to the park with Ming- yes Nana- that is one of his Birthday shirts!



Sunday- the 4th! We are very fortunate to live right in the center of all the celebration- the Art Museum is literally 5 blocks away, and the entire festival for the 4th is a 5 min walk from the house. You can't beat the convenience of being able to go, but return home for water, AC, the bathroom, a nap, etc. We took B and Ming down to the festival and had lunch and played around.

Leaving the house (the sunglasses didn't last more than 20 seconds)



Not the best pic- but you can see his patriotic shorts!


They had a whole free section for kids of bounce equiptment (slides, wrecking ball, funhouse, etc). Next year he will definitely have a blast- but this year there was one inflatable helicoptor for the mini guys :)







When we came home he was messy so needed a shirt change- I think this pic is hysterical because he is such a mismatched mess, long hair, and begging to go swimming b/c it was 100 degrees out :)






Monday.
There is a park that is not a playground, but a sprayground, about 4 miles from us. It is AWESOME. It is basically a free park that sprays water all around.
In this picture you can kind of see all the spray coming up from the ground, plus the blue and yellow polls spray water down from the tops.


At first- he was tentative

And confused when the water would turn off intermittently


But then Daddy and Mommy showed him the ropes






He really liked the stupid drain part LOL






And before you knew it he was crawling around and splashing like a maniac







They had a cool playground there- but that was geared for older kids (like way older, it was HARD). We dried off on the teeter totter for a few mins before heading home for a nap


After his afternoon nap we tried out his new birthday present from friends of ours- a car- and took Ming to the park again. This car is great bc the handle, and it has a strap to hold him in, and the hood of the car opens up so I can throw my keys, a toy, and a snack in. It is going to be touch to decide which to use between this and the Cozy Coupe (which has a canopy but no strap).



Brooks played Peek-a-boo with Ming and her frisbee :)