Life With 2 (+ 1) Redheads

Not me....yet (hopefully).

Josh started getting sick Friday when he went in for his shift this weekend. He called me and told me to make the bed up in the spare room (Tyler's old room/nursery) for him to sleep in there. He had chills, was congested, coughing, and felt really run down. Tyler and I got out of the house Saturday morning and came home with chicken noodle soup and stuff to make grilled cheeses. And, we kept our distances, washing our hands every 10 minutes! He woke up feeling better today. But he's still congested and seems to have a stomach bug.

I, on the other hand, woke up full of energy today. I cleaned out cabinets in the kitchen, did laundry, scrubbed walls in the laundry room. Can you say nesting? I got Tyler outside today since he was running around like a gorilla. However, around 4 today, I got really tired and run down. And, now my eyes are watering. I'm praying I'm just plain exhausted from doing too much. I do feel a little stuffy but not bad. Of course, the downside for me getting sick is that I can't take anything for it. So, let's hope I miss this sickness like I managed to a few months ago when Josh got sick!

This morning, I woke up at 8am confused why Tyler hadn’t been in our room to wake us up as he does most mornings around 7am.  Shortly after, I heard this from his room:

“I pooted.”

“I pooooooooooted.”

“Iiiiiiiiiiii POOOOOOOOOOOOTED.”

“ahaha, I pooted!” 

I started laughing half asleep, half awake.  I finally got up and walked in his room.

What a great kid.  I have no idea how long he’d been up—an hour maybe?  Reading books like a champ.

And apparently pooting as well. 

He said, “mommy I let you sleep.”

Yes, yes you did Tyler.  THANK YOU!

Now go use the potty.

Babycenter.com sends me emails every Friday morning that tells me what's going on that week in my pregnancy. I remember getting these during my first pregnancy and laughing at how they like to compare the size of the baby to some type of food. The first week, he was a poppy seed. This week? A Butternut Squash.

For visual purposes at 29 weeks:

How your baby's growing:

Your baby now weighs about 2 1/2 pounds (like a butternut squash) and is a tad over 15 inches long from head to heel. His muscles and lungs are continuing to mature, and his head is growing bigger to make room for his developing brain. To meet his increasing nutritional demands, you'll need plenty of protein, vitamins C, folic acid, and iron. And because his bones are soaking up lots of calcium, be sure to drink your milk (or find another good source of calcium, such as cheese, yogurt, or enriched orange juice). This trimester, about 250 milligrams of calcium are deposited in your baby's hardening skeleton each day.

How your life's changing:

Your baby's very active now. Your practitioner may ask you to spend some time each day counting kicks and will give you specific instructions on how to do this. Let her know if you ever notice a decrease in activity. You may need a nonstress test or biophysical profile to check on your baby's condition.

Some old friends — heartburn and constipation — may take center stage now. The pregnancy hormone progesterone relaxes smooth muscle tissue throughout your body, including your gastrointestinal tract. This relaxation, coupled with the crowding in your abdomen, slows digestion, which in turn can cause gas and heartburn — especially after a big meal — and contribute to constipation as well.

Some women get something called "supine hypotensive syndrome" during pregnancy, where laying flat on your back causes a change in heart rate and blood pressure that makes you feel dizzy until you change position. You might note that you feel lightheaded if you stand up too quickly, too. To avoid "the spins" lie on your side rather than your back, and move slowly as you go from lying down to sitting and then standing.

Effective tomorrow, I will be working from home on Wednesdays.

Holler!

Hot

Nauseous

Heartburn

Tired

Run Down


Yep..I guess that's about right.

wasn't Tyler.






















Poor Toby. He has no idea what he's in for.

As I sent out Tyler’s birthday invitations yesterday, I thought about how much Tyler has changed developmentally this past year. 

Potty Training

I always thought by 3, Tyler would be potty trained or at least showing interest in the potty.  But this was a lesson I learned being a first time parent.  Even now, close to 4, Tyler still has accidents.  And, Josh and I have had to figure out how to respond to them appropriately.  It’s hard not to be annoyed when 10 minutes after asking him to use the potty and he refuses, he goes in his pants.  But we’ve learned that by scolding him, it makes the issue worse.  Sometimes I wonder when the accidents will end, but I know that it’s another area that we will wait for Tyler’s readiness. 

Speech

It hasn’t been but a few months since Tyler’s starting speech.  I have to say I really haven’t noticed a change at all since beginning speech with the therapist which is frustrating.  However, when I look at where he is now versus 6 months ago, I can tell a huge difference.  We still struggle to understand him at times.  And sometimes I wonder if I’m so used to figuring his speech out that I overlook some things.  His vocabulary has definitely increased.  His articulation has improved in time, but he still needs work.  Sometimes I wonder if I’m expecting too much at his age, but then I hear other children in his class and am reminded that I’m likely not.  But, we are getting there and luckily have resources to help us.

Independence

We have always taught Tyler to do things on his own—maybe more so than we should.  In my early months of pregnancy, I taught Tyler while lying on the couch to pull up a chair in the kitchen, climb on the counter, grab a plastic cup, climb down, and fill it with water from the fridge.  Luckily, there were no injuries :)  So, to this day when he wants water he gets it himself.  However, we make sure the cup is already down for him.  Literally in the past months there has been a boost of independence in Tyler.  He has to do EVERYTHING.  Yes, he wanted to help out before, but now it must be done by Tyler alone.  If I walk out of the room and turn the light off, he gets upset saying he wanted to do it.  If I open the front door to walk outside, he argues that he wanted to do it.  The lights, the doors, the carseat, getting dressed, brushing teeth, you name it.  It all comes in handy at times especially now that I’m 7 months pregnant and the fact that he can get dressed completely by himself (underwear, pants, shirt, socks) is a big help to me.  Last night after bath time, we left him to get dressed by himself.

And he knows the times he is allowed to watch TV so he takes it upon himself to turn it on himself.  Amazingly, he has not completely screwed up our TV programming yet.  He also will put DVDs in the DVD player by himself though we’ve had several talks about how this is not acceptable.  The other night I was putting a DVD in for him and he felt the need to instruct me on which buttons to push. 

Never Forgets a Thing

I’m not sure if this is uncommon but this kid doesn’t forget a thing.  I can count on two hands how many times he’s hung around my friends Taylor and Chris, yet he will remember everything in their house.  He will randomly talk about them in conversation.  Last week at school, the letter of the week was “P” so on Wednesday they had Pajama day.  Unfortunately for Tyler, I forgot completely.  I walked in, saw the kids in pajamas, looked at Tyler and apologized.  He looked at me not mad or sad but a look that said “Mom, seriously.  Get it together.”  When I picked him up from school and asked him how his day was, he told me that he didn’t get to wear pajamas.  He told Josh the same at home.  He also told my Mother in Law on the phone that evening.  In fact, I’m pretty sure he won’t forget that one for a while. 

Pretend Play

Honestly, I think this child has always done this but it wasn’t until the last six months that I could actually understand what he was saying.  This evening in the car, he was playing with two little figurines and the conversation between them went like this:

“Oh no, where are you?”

“No!  You are in the bathroom?”

“You’re supposed to be eating dinner.”

“Guess you need a time out.” 

Loving

I think one of my favorite parts of having a little boy is how much they love their mommies.  However, Tyler is just an incredibly loving child in general.  I think part of this is due to his teachers at school.  They are extremely loving with their kids and very big on hugs, kisses, and “i love yous.” Tyler will come up to me out of nowhere and tell me he loves me or give me a hug. 

I can’t believe he will turn 4 so soon, but I’m really enjoying this developmental age!

Since Josh was scheduled to work over Valentine’s weekend, Tyler and I made plans to go home and see my family.  I went to pick Tyler up early on Friday afternoon and got there in time to see his Valentine’s Party at preschool.  He had been so excited that I volunteered to make cupcakes to bring to the party.  He, of course, thought they were for his birthday!  Here are a few pictures from his party at school.

 

On Valentine’s Day, I took Tyler to his first circus along with his Mimi, aunt, and cousins.  He had a great time! 

And once we made it back home Sunday night, my valentine and I had dinner:  French toast and fresh fruit :)

Click on the image to make larger

I went in today for my 27 week visit. Six more lovely pounds to the scale. I never weigh myself, but I did this morning before going in. I knew I had really grown in the past four weeks in belly size and in my legs. So, I didn't really want to be shocked...and I wasn't. Of course MY scale showed 4 lbs, but whatever! My urine sample showed protein which meant I was dehydrated. Funny how all those months of throwing up, my urine never showed protein, but now it does! More water, more water. Less sodium, less sodium. I swear, they might as well hook a water hose to my stomach because I just can't force myself to drink much more when I'm not thirsty! As for the sodium, I've been limiting the best I can. No canned vegetables, only frozen or fresh. No more caffeine drinks. Not that I was drinking them all the time. I said no to Chinese the other day. Torture! So, I really thought that my garden salad I made last night for dinner was a-OK. My nurse informed me that tomatoes were pretty much sodium. Huh? I had no idea. And salad dressing does too. Well, really. What the heck can I eat? I thought I was killing two birds with one stone ---lower calories and lower sodium.

I also had my glucose testing done. Last pregnancy I remember liking the orange drink, so I thought I would choose that one again over the fruit punch. Not quite as I remembered, but it was tolerable. The baby seemed to love all the sugar though! I should get my results in a few days.

Twenty minutes of my hour wait to get blood work after the drink was my actual visit. My doctor, who is pretty laid back, just suggested trying to drink as much water as I could but that at this point most women are going to have traces of protein in their urine. I measured where I should. Heartbeat was good. Tailbone pressure is normal. Kicking lower probably indicates he's breech. When I come back in four weeks, March 9, we will hopefully schedule this little one's birthday! It will be the first week of May. We are hoping for May 5. No, not because it's Cinco De Mayo.

Overall, due to the fact that I went to bed last night at 8:30 I feel pretty good today. I still take Zofran. Still throw up on occasion. Heartburn is present, but it is managed by Tums. I feel like I should be an advocate for Tums Smoothies.

If I feel brave, I'll take another belly picture. 26 lbs is not making me feel so attractive these days! ;)

Some might say that I have willpower not to have bought a single baby thing until now. Honestly, I just haven't had time to think about it and get down Tyler's clothes to see what I have. That's still another weekend project. But I know that the seasons will line up fairly well. Yesterday while at Kohls, I could not help myself. Yes, it doesn't perfectly match the big brother shirt I just bought Tyler, but I'm not into matchy matchy stuff with boys anyway. Plus, I couldn't find a big brother shirt anywhere online that was the bigger version of this one :)

With all the work stress in the past month, I have to admit that I have not been the most involved mommy.  When the weekends came, I was so run down that I just didn’t want to do a thing.  So, I promised that this weekend I would do something fun with Tyler.  Of course, it was snowing outside and cold so we stayed in.  But that still meant we had fun. 

We got the glitter out

and the finger paint

and the play dough

and made daddy “breakfast”

but we left out the bugs

and while it did this for 5 hours

I didn’t think of any work or pregnancy woes. 

And it felt nice for once.

I've been drooling over THIS blog for months. I love her photography and her recipes. Tonight I decided to make one of her recipes, and it turned out divine!

Here's the link to her step-by-step recipe:

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2007/06/chicken_spaghet/

The only thing I would do differently is cut out the cayenne pepper. Even Josh, who loves spicy stuff, thought it was a little too much. But the rest was awesome! This is definitely a keeper! And it makes a ton! I have three portions in Tupperware containers for lunches. This with a side of Roasted Garlic Baby Whole Green Beans (frozen food aisle) was a great dinner for our family!

I'm FREE!

This submission was not without its stresses! The large grants like I just worked on are typically submitted to the NIH on Feb 5, June 5, or Oct 5.

All I can say is that I'm glad I won't be assigned a June 5 grant because I'LL BE ON MATERNITY LEAVE! :)

It's out to celebrate with my two biggest redhead supporters and tolerant family members!

AND  = THIS PG MOMMA

I think it was around this time with Tyler that I started to swell.  Mostly it started with my hands and left me wearing my wedding rings on a chain around my neck.   As if on cue, this week the swelling started.  I can tell a little bit in my hands, but my calves and ankles are where it’s most noticeable at the end of the day.  I had horrible swelling towards the end with Tyler.  My feet were so swollen that I had to wear slippers to work! 

So, the increase in water intake and the decrease in sodium begins.  My main problem with drinking water is that I typically get so busy that I don’t drink enough.  Or, I’m just never thirsty.  Today, I did manage to get down 2 glasses of water before work, 2 bottles at work, and then more at home.  But I need to be drinking even more.  Way more.

and yes, I brought it in to work today.

and yes, I am counting down the days until I am no longer pregnant

because I hurt.

By the way, that chair....is especially for me. The nice facilities guy got it for me. And when there was a threat that the manufacturer was going to take it away due to a defect, he argued to get them to just fix the chair.

It pays to be nice to the right people. :)