Category Archives: Dave

35

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I turned 35 yesterday. I suppose I should be happy, since I now finally qualify for that “advanced maternal age” flag that’s already on my chart at my OB’s office. (Side rant: who on earth came up with that phrase? It makes me feel like one of those 60 year-old women who has her own grandbabies through IVF. It’s CREEPY.)

Anyway, you know, it’s fine. Everybody gets older, yadda yadda. I’m not exactly having a mid-life crisis about it over here.

And I have to say, one of the coolest things about social media? All the “happy birthday” wishes you get on Twitter and Facebook. That’s pretty awesome.

It was really nice that my birthday fell on a Sunday this year. We went out for breakfast, where Catie kept Dave and me entertained by making all kinds of funny faces.

Catie at breakfast

Catie making funny faces

Catie making funny faces

Funny Catie

(Lest you think my child is always this adorable and charming, I have to add that this was a TOTAL 180 from the night before, in which she and I stopped at a local pizzeria to pick up some dinner, and she was rude and insufferable the entire time we were there. Three year-olds are unpredictable, man.)

After breakfast, we walked around downtown Apex for a while. We’ve lived here for two and a half years, and we’d never done that before. Dave and I have talked a few times about how we don’t really feel as connected to this area as we did in Seattle, and I think a lot of it is our own fault, for not making the effort. And it turns out? The old-timey downtown part of our town is really cute, even though most of the shops were closed because it was Sunday. It didn’t matter, it was a gorgeous day outside, and the walk was nice. And we’ll be sure to do it again sometime when the stores are open, because there are a ton of neat places that we’d like to check out.

We hit the grocery store and headed home, where I got Catie settled on the couch with a Scooby-Doo movie, and I got my favorite part of my entire day: A NAP. I almost never take naps, and it seems to be something that pregnant ladies desperately need, so that was fabulous.

When I woke up, Catie and I put on our matching aprons and made my birthday cake together; she’s turning into quite a little sous-chef, that kid. It was strawberry with white frosting and pink decorations – guess who picked THAT out? Then she told me what the cake should say:

My birthday cake
“Happy birthday Mommy. Love, Catie.”

Um, sorry, Dave? There wasn’t room to fit his name on there anyway.

I have to add, this is NOT the first example of how horrible my handwriting is when it comes to writing things in frosting. Witness the cake I made the first year that Dave and I were dating (that’s 2004, for those of y’all keeping track):

Yeah. And he married me anyway. (After he asked me why I drew intestines on his cake – it was supposed to be a heart!!)

And now you know why we’ll be ordering Catie’s cake for her birthday party in two weeks.

Later, I got my present from Dave. He always gives really awesome gifts, and this year was no exception: I got a treadmill! Well, technically I got a photo of a treadmill because the real one is stuck in a snowstorm somewhere in the midwest, but it’s on its way here! But I’ve been asking for a treadmill for ages, so that was perfect.

The thing is, I loved doing the Couch-to-5K last year, and I want to start it up again after Baby 2.0 is born. But I am also a big whiny baby about running if the weather is anything less than perfect. If it’s too hot or too cold, I’m probably not going to do it. And I learned last year that I actually do like running on a treadmill, but I tend to get lazy about it if I have to get dressed, find my membership card, drive 10 minutes to the gym, etc. So the idea is that having the treadmill in the house will force me to stop making excuses. (That actually does work with me too, it’s why I’m much more likely to stick with a workout DVD than a gym class.) Plus, I figure that with two kids in the house, it might just be easier for me to squeeze in a quick workout if I can do it without leaving the premises.

So, treadmill! Yay!

We finished off the night with burgers, fries, birthday cake (of course) and “The Social Network,” which was a really good movie.

All in all? 35 is pretty good so far. No complaints here.

The 19 Week Belly

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Last night, I was walking from the living room back into the kitchen, when Dave sort of looked at me sideways.

Dave: “So… Has anyone at work asked you if you’re pregnant yet?”

Me: “Nope.”

Dave: “Well then, they’re obviously just being polite, because, DAMN.”

Uh.. thank you, my love?

Here’s the thing: the office where I work? Is almost entirely male. And the guys are all nerds, which means they’re overall a relatively shy bunch, and I’m pretty sure they’d rather die than risk offending me by asking if I’m pregnant.

So, you know what? Fine. Let them wonder if maybe I just went balls-out nuts with the holidays treats this year. I’m not that bothered by it.

But something that has been bothering me, is the fact that my maternity clothes don’t fit me very well. My starting weight when I got pregnant with Catie was 20 pounds lighter than this time, so my old maternity clothes are mostly too tight, too short, or I feel like my boobs are going to fall out of them. (And don’t get me wrong, I don’t have giant pregnant hooters now. I’m just not used to having anything, so actually filling out a B cup is sort of mind-blowing to me.)

[Random aside: I was wearing one of the shirts that makes me feel extra cleavage-y the other day when I was helping Catie get dressed. I leaned over to help her get her pants on, and she put her hand on my chest and said, “I like your boobs, Mommy.” I was sort of dumbstruck for a response, but finally I said, “Thanks. Me too.”]

Since I worked crazy overtime hours yesterday, I decided to make up for it by taking off a little early today, and I headed to the mall to try to find some maternity clothes that fit me.

19 weeks pregnant

So, yeah. I think I might be showing a bit?

The crazy thing is that at my doctor’s appointment last week, the scale said I’d only gained two pounds so far. I don’t understand how a belly that large can only account for two measly pounds, and lord knows I have not been making any effort whatsoever at maintaining a healthy diet or exercise plan with this pregnancy. So I guess stuff must be redistributing itself from other parts of my body, but damned if I know.

But if this is how large I look at 19 weeks, I’m terrified to think of how huge I’m going to be in about three months from now!

Bad Track Record

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My mother-in-law is flying in from England today. I know that the stereotype would be to have a difficult and strained relationship with a mother-in-law, but I honestly don’t. She’s funny, she’s an amazing cook, and I find her very easy to be around.

At the same time, though, I do feel a teeny-tiny sense of Impending Doom about her upcoming visit. But it’s not for any of the reasons you’d think. The reason is because every year since Catie was born, we’ve seen her at some point during the month of December, and every year, somebody gets really horribly sick.

To recap:
* 2007 – We all got the flu. And let me tell you, trying to take care of a sick baby when you’re sick yourself? Oh man. That was hideous.

* 2008 – Catie ended up in the hospital with a major asthma/flu episode. Because nothing says “Happy holidays!” like continuous albuterol treatments.

* 2009 – We went to England. Catie was spared, this time it was just me and Dave who got sick. Because of that trip, I have vowed to never go to England during the winter again. (It had more to do with the epic snowstorm than my bronchitis-that-was-almost-pneumonia, but still. Not fun on any counts.)

[Oh, there was also the visit – NOT during the month of December, oddly enough – where my mother-in-law herself wound up in the ER with a concussion after falling in the grocery store and hitting her head. That was fun too.]

And now she’s on her way here for 2010. *dun dun duuuuuunnnnnn*

It’s already starting. Dave got sick with some sort of nasty cold a couple of days ago, and today I woke up with a scratchy throat. Which is great, since you know, pregnancy keeps me from being able to take any of the good drugs. I’m basically limited to my Zyrtec and my neti pot. Fabulous.

Let’s just hope we can avoid any hospital visits this time, yes?

Pregnancy Low-Down

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Two major topics I didn’t mention in yesterday’s post:

* Despite the fact that we waited for what feels like AGES for this baby, the timing with my new job could be better. For those of you keeping track, I applied for this job back in August (before I got pregnant), and I found out that I was pregnant sometime around my third interview. Then they waited another five weeks to actually hire me. So I started working here when I was already 10 weeks pregnant. And I’ve been praying that nobody would figure it out right away, and that they’d think I’m chubby with an unfortunate way of carrying my extra weight around my mid-section. But I’m already mostly in maternity clothes, so I think it’s going to be really obvious very soon.

(This is the burden of having a short torso. Nowhere to expand except outward.)

I mean, I just didn’t want to walk in here on Day One and be like, “Hey, thanks for the job and all, but BTW I’m gonna need some maternity leave in a few months.” It seemed… tacky. I wanted to establish myself as a valuable employee first. So, I’m working on trying to figure out a graceful way to handle that one. Obviously, this is not my first time at this particular rodeo, so it’s not like I’m going to be quitting when the baby arrives. I know that I still want to (need to) work, so I just need to make sure I explain that very clearly to my manager when I tell him.

(Oh, that’s the other weird part. My manager is based in the Colorado office, so he has no idea what I look like. I could theoretically wait until a week before my due date to say anything. I mean, I won’t do that, because that would be horrible. But I probably could get away with it.)

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* Catie is pretty aware of what’s going on now. We’ve talked about how she’s going to be a big sister “someday,” since it’s hard to explain timelines to an almost-4 year-old. I tried telling her it’ll be next summer, but I don’t know if she understands that or not.

I showed her the ultrasound pictures from yesterday and explained that it was her baby sister and that the doctor took a picture of her in my tummy (she found her own ultrasound pics once and I explained to her that it was a picture of her before she was born, so she’s familiar with that). I told her that it’s going to be a long time before the baby is here, and my tummy is going to get reeeeeally big in the meantime. She said, “Wow, I’m so excited to see a picture of my baby sister! [3-second pause] Mommy, can I play with Daddy’s iPad?” So… yeah. I’m not sure how much she really understands about this whole thing.

But she IS excited to help me decorate the spare room. So there’s that.

Oh, also? Now I really, really, REALLY want my parents to hurry up and sell their house to move up here. I’m going to need their help more than ever, no doubt. Anybody need to buy a 4-bedroom/2-bath house in Ridgeland, Mississippi? Anyone?

Knocked Up

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So, sometime in late September, there was this.

And then today, there was this.

It looks like we’re having baby #2 sometime on or around May 31st, 2011. I’m a little over 12 weeks along. And based on the ultrasound today, the doctor said there’s about a 95% chance that we’re having another girl.

If you know how long Dave and I were trying to get pregnant (OVER. A. YEAR.), you know that obviously we’re both beyond thrilled. And we’re super-excited about having two girls, too.

It’s funny, after how horrible my first pregnancy was, I couldn’t imagine being excited about doing it all over again. And it’s true, I’m still not the glowing “Earth Mother” type. I’m much more likely to whine about heartburn or moan about how my clothes all suddenly stopped fitting about 5 minutes after I got a positive pregnancy test.

But at the same time? I’m so psyched. I absolutely cannot wait to meet this tiny person. If she is anything like her big sister, we are in gonna be in for SO MUCH FUN.

YAY FOR BABIES!! (And more on the nitty-gritty pregnancy details later!)

Random Odds & Ends

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Catie’s latest obsession is Scooby-Doo. One would think that the excessive amount of monsters, ghosts, etc., would be too much for your average 3 year-old, but apparently that’s not the case for her. I’m pretty sure that in the past couple of weeks, I’ve watched more episodes of Scooby-Doo than I ever did in my all of my childhood years combined.

It’s gotten to the point that I was trying to think of toys for Santa Claus to bring Catie, this action figure set was the first thing I thought of for her. Since she’s already working the names Shaggy and Velma into her imaginative play, I have a hunch that she’s going to flip out over it.

Incidentally, that’s about as far as I’ve gotten with my Christmas shopping and planning. Hmm. I should probably work on that, shouldn’t I?

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This weekend I got Catie all dressed up and took her to our town’s community park, which has a gorgeous lake and some really great views, and I tried to get pictures of her for our Christmas card. (It also helps that we’re having the most vibrant fall I think I’ve ever seen, the colors of the leaves are absolutely amazing.) I got some pictures that I thought were really great, played around with some Christmas card layouts, and ran them past my mom and sister to see what they thought. My mom said that she thought Catie was doing a “fake smile” in every picture and that I needed to re-do the whole thing. I think my mom needs to put down the crack pipe if she thinks I’m going to go through that whole process all over again.

(And for the record: I DON’T think she’s fake-smiling in most of the pictures. Sure, she’s not belly-laughing, but she was happy, and the smiles were real. So there.)

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I’m trying to get in the habit of doing all my chores on the weekend so that I don’t have to worry about them during the week, but it’s hard. I know that eventually we’ll find out groove, but in the meantime, OOF. I seem to forget about a lot of things until Sunday afternoon, then there’s this whole panic of trying to get everything done at the last minute. It’s a weird trade-off: my weekends are busy and semi-stressful, but in exchange, it means that my time at home during the week is pretty chilled out and easy. Eh, I guess it works.

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On the topic of weekend chores: One of the things that drives me insane is that Catie leaves her toys all over the family room, strewn everywhere. Now, it’d probably make more sense to just clean up the small mess she’s made each day, but I’m always tired at night and I forget about it at the time. Then by the time the weekend hits, I’m ready to scream from all of the clutter. The problem is, she’s only 3, so when I tell her to clean up her stuff, she just kind of stands there and stares at it. She can’t seem to figure out what to do first. (Actually, Dave has the same problem, so maybe it has nothing to do with her age and everything to do with genetics.) I don’t mind helping her, but I also want her to learn how to clean up her own messes. It’s part of that whole “teaching your kid to be self-sufficient” thing, which I consider to be a big part of my job as a parent.

But, I think I’ve figured out a way to work with her on this. I tell her that we’re going to have a Clean-Up Race. I set the timer on the microwave for five minutes, and we both work on picking up all of her toys. Whoever cleans up the most stuff in 5 minutes (hint: it’s always the kid, never the grown-up) is the winner, and gets a piece of candy. In Catie’s case, that’s a York peppermint patty, which is her favorite treat on earth.

And bonus points: the two times we’ve done this Clean-Up Race, we’ve gotten the entire family room clean before the 5-minute timer beeped. Love that. Chores that can be done quickly and effectively? WIN.

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There’s some other stuff going on with us right now, but this entry is getting way too long, so it’ll have to wait until later this week. (I know, you’re like, DYING of anticipation, aren’t you? Heh.)

Candy Heaven

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Catie’s daycare is having a Halloween party on Friday afternoon. All the kids dress up in their costumes, they have a “parade” (read: they march in a circle around the outside of the building), and the parents all come to take a million pictures. It sounds like fun. I saw on the door to Catie’s classroom there was a sign-up sheet to bring food for the party, and since most of the options involved cooking or a lot of preparation, I signed up for “Halloween-oriented treat.” Right. Candy. I can do that.

I considered just buying a bag of something and calling it good, but I had to buy Halloween candy for our neighborhood kids anyway, and there are only 12 kids in Catie’s class. So I bought some festive tiny paper sacks and filled each of them up with a variety of treats. Catie helped me distribute the candy evenly among the bags, it was a fun little project for us. We even made an extra bag for her teacher.

One of the things that I bought – which, if I’m being totally honest here, I mainly bought for me, not for the Halloween party or for the trick-or-treaters this weekend – was a big bag of Nerds candy. I love Nerds. This bag was made up of tiny boxes of grape and strawberry flavors. My favorites.

So while we were setting up the treat bags, I opened a little box of Nerds for myself. Catie asked if she could try them. I said sure, she held out her hand, and I shook a few of them out of the box into her palm.

As soon as she put them in her mouth, she got this really weird, sort of far-away look on her face. I thought maybe it was too sour for her and she’d want to spit them out.

Me: Do you like them?

Catie: *nodding*

Me: It’s not too sour for you, is it?

Catie: (in a hushed, almost reverential tone) This is the best candy I’ve ever eaten in my whole life.

So apparently she likes the sour stuff, just like her mommy.

She asked if she could have her own mini-box of Nerds. Since I had wolfed down mine already, I gave her one, and she took off upstairs with it. I knew Dave was taking a nap upstairs, but I didn’t think anything about it.

Catie came downstairs a few minutes later. “I put some of da Nerds in Daddy’s mouth while he was sleeping to share them with him. Was that nice?”

I told her that yes, sharing is very nice, but it’s usually a good idea to wait until the person is awake. I was a little worried that Dave would choke in his sleep, so we went upstairs to check on him. He was awake, he said that he had been sleeping, obviously with his mouth open, because he woke up to Catie shoving candy in his gaping maw.

This is around the part where I died laughing. What makes it even funnier is that Dave doesn’t even like Nerds. He isn’t into sour candy at all.

Oh well. I guess for now, the Willy Wonka candy people can rest easy knowing that they just got at least one brand new fan this Halloween season.