35 & 35

on saturday i hit a mark in this pregnancy that i wasn't quite ready to hit: 35 weeks gestation, and 35 days till the due date. yeek! it was right about now (three years ago) that little jack came screeching into our lives, so unexpectedly early. i'll be holding my breath until september 12th: the day i hit 37 weeks and can proceed with a home birth. 12 days and counting. i'm holding out especially for september 24th, since we have tickets to see Wicked. this will be our third attempt to see the musical, and barring any early arrivals, i'm hoping this time we'll actually get to go. otherwise i'll just assume that the universe had decided that we are NOT meant to see that show.

i still don't feel quite ready for baby gavin to arrive. the small diapers and newborn clothes are all still packed away. the house has not yet been cleaned (for awhile). the birthing tub wont' be delivered till i hit 37 weeks, and i haven't yet really thought about the birth coming up. i think in my previous pregnancies, i had already made and addressed the birth announcements by now. not this time. even though benjamin just weaned two months ago, i'm having a hard time believing i'll be full-time nursing again.

i'm trying to take some steps to prepare, like doubling or tripling recipes when i cook dinner so that i can throw some meals in the freezer. i'm in the process of scheduling a deep-clean with EcoMaids in mid-September. At some point, I suppose I'll pull out the small diapers and clothes, and try to rearrange Benjamin's closet and make room for Gavin's stuff. At this point we take it week by week. This coming weekend we'll be putting stain on our deck. Mike has a lot of days off in the weeks to come, and I am focusing on getting as much of the dissertation written as is possible.

for now, i continue to grow and get a little achier each day. i don't think i see new stretch marks, but the ones i have from benjamin seem to be getting redder and possibly extending up my belly further. i really do feel quite large some days. i wonder how many shoe sizes i'll have grown after this pregnancy, compared to what i wore prior to kids?

It's Official; I'm pregnant.

I've always loved being pregnant, and being that I have relatively easy and complaint-free pregnancies, I feel I don't deserve the right to complain. Much. But I decided this past weekend that I've officially started feeling Pregnant, with a capital "P." My feet hurt the minute I step out of bed. These poor feet were not meant to carry around 200 lbs. Yes, that's right, I've surpassed my husband's weight by 20 lbs and still have 5 weeks to go. This will be largest pregnancy yet. I'm predicting an 8 1/2 lber. The round ligament pain makes me limp for the first 20 steps I take after sitting/lying down. My lower back has reached the end of its rope, and is never happy-- not when I'm upright, not when I lie down. I'm so tired I could literally sleep through the day and night. I feel like bending over is the most anyone can ask of me these days. Any sort of exercise, be it crouching down to clean up food from the floor after Benjamin eats, or actual walking, causes my uterus to be so tight that sometimes I don't want to move. On the up side, the varicose veins in my right calf haven't hurt for several weeks, so I haven't had to attempt the pulling on of those ridiculous ted hose in my current extra-large state. I have nooooo energy, and days spent chasing after the kids leave me feeling completely beat up. I am very lucky to have Mike around more this coming month; he is using up a bunch of personal days at work before the baby comes so that I can do as much last minute dissertation writing as possible. For the first two weeks in September, he works only 2 days a week. Honestly, dissertation writing seems easy compared to chasing after my two rowdy boys.

Still, with all the aches and pains, I'm in no hurry for this baby to make his appearance. I also still love being pregnant. Most of the time.

potty training 101

yep, it's that time for us. the bit "PT." jack has been peeing on the old potty for awhile now, but only when we think to ask him to or he indicates an interest. we've been pretty non-committed. until this weekend, when we declared cold turkey PT. i had heard from many parents that this is the best way to do it; just put them in underwear and let them learn. so we stayed home all weekend to do it. we did well with the peeing; only 2 accidents on that. pooping, on the other hand... not a chance. 4 dirty pairs of underwear in two days obviously indicates an all-out refusal to consider using the potty for that purpose. we have both a little potty chair and of course, the toilet. he usually prefers the toilet, although the little potty is now taking on a new attractiveness for some reason. whatever- i don't care much what he uses as long as he's learning. but still, the pooping. i tried to convince him that he could ask for a diaper if he needed to poop, and we could just use them for that purpose until he's ready to take the next step. but he isn't interested. (not that it makes much of a difference if we're washing a diaper or underwear.) this morning he threw a fit about the underwear so we let him choose between undies and a diaper. he chose diaper. guess we'll just follow his lead and when he's really ready, we'll know. i imagine we'll go back and forth for quite some time. oh, the joy.

since we were home all weekend i used yesterday as my cooking day for our next meal exchange. i decided to try something new this time and made moroccan beef. i'm sure i commited a true crime in meal exchange land because i picked out a recipe we'd never tried before, and before making a trial run, i just went ahead and made all 8 meals. luckily, i liked the end product :) it's sort of like a stew, so i think i'll also provide bags of cous cous for everyone to serve under the beef mixture. i thought the recipe looked easy, but as always, i found that i was exhausted after spending most the day on my feet cooking 8 meals. no matter how easy, taking a recipe times 8 will always be time consuming.


We did a lot of laundry this weekend since, again, we were stuck at home! Our electric/gas bills have been phenomenal this year given the mild temperatures. We've not had to run the AC much, and I've tried to hang as many loads as posible on the line. Our last bill was about $85. Who can beat that for the summer?! I was slightly surprised this weekend to find that behind my clothesline, there slept a tiny bat:


I wouldn't say I'm afraid of bats, but he sure did give me scare. I guess the drain pipe and clothesline provided a nice dark spot for daytime sleeping. I wasn't too sad to see that he had moved on the next day.

Well, I'm at 34 weeks and 2 days. Minor point of panic: it was one week and 2 days from this point in my pregnancy that I delivered Jack. Agghhh! I would SO not be ready for that yet. You think these two are ready for another brother in the mix?

impending doom (otherwise known as: winter)

there are a few trees on our street that seem to be quite confused about the mildness of this year's summer, and are already losing their leaves. i am SO not okay with this. i realize that those of you with kids old enough to be in school have already bid sayonara to summer as you watch your kids amble off to kindergarten, but those of us who will be stuck with littles at home, and no school in site, say NO NO NO!!!! it's still mid-august, and we are doing fun summer things. evidence:

sprinklers


dancing fountains


outdoor birthday parties for our best buds


learning to play soccer with uncle adam


and enjoying the fact that being pregnant right now is not nearly as miserable as it would normaly be in the iowa august heat


this is not to mention the numerous farmer's markets, parks, and trike rides we enjoy on a daily basis. however, i'm beginning to sense the impending doom of fall. i love fall weather, but in our neck of the woods, fall typically seems to last about 3 weeks and then, BOOM. cold. winter. for months and months. no more outdoor activities, no more eating on the deck to avoid cleaning up messes in the kitchen, no more simple outdoor play to pass the time and get exercise. my list of winter activities is short: mall play area, library visits, and the occasional toy store visit and play date. they all mean leaving the house with 3 little ones in the cold winter weather, and none of them involve as much exercise as outdoor play. i'm seriously starting to panic. am i too young to become a snow bird?

sound asleep one minute, moving furniture the next

[yawn]. {sigh}. anyone else tired?

i've got seven weeks (ish) till a new baby arrives and i find myself more tired than ever. i'd like to blame it on the lower back pain that has recently taken over my previous good sleeping habits, but i attribute it more to my 3-yr-old. yes, my 3-yr-old (not my 15-month-old). i don't know if it's the fairly recent move to a big boy bed or a new realization of his own dreams, but jack wakes up about three times every night after the midnight hour. fortunately he usually requires a quick fix and we're back to bed in a few minutes, but for me, falling back asleep isn't as easy as it once was; since waking up forces me to become aware of my full bladder, and also to have to reacquaint myself with a comfortable position for my back in bed. most mornings i feel like a zombie. why is he getting up? let's see, here are some things we've heard at 1am, 3am, 5am... in the last couple mornings:

"my pillow fell off!"
"my covers fell off!"
"my book fell out of bed!"
"i want to watch choo choo while baby goes to sleep in his bed!" (dreaming?)
"i want to eat dinner now!" (definitely dreaming)
"i want my music off!"
"i want my music on!"
"where's my balloon?" (he insisted on sleeping with a balloon he got from a restaurant)

now, since he went from sleeping in a queen-sized mattress on the floor to a single mattress raised on a bed frame, the first three complaints are probably understandable. the others are just annoying. he doesn't seem to be having nightmares or asking a drink/snuggle/etc. that would indicate he is feeling lonely or scared all alone. so i'm not sure what is causing this recent bout of wakefullness. i got to deal with the book falling out of bed problem at 3:30am this morning. and of COURSE it fell flat against the wall, in the middle of the mattress. and of COURSE i couldn't fit my belly under the bed to reach it, and of COURSE i had to 1) turn the light on to see it and 2) move his bed away from the wall to get it.
if it were as easy as allowing him to work it out and go back to sleep, i'd be all for it. but when he wakes up, he does it with a piercing cry and scream for "mama" or "daddy" that doesn't go away if we ignore it. and seeing that allowing it to go on would most likely mean we'd have two children awake, we usually run to his room as quickly as possible to quelch the screaming. lots of fun.

and in 7ish weeks i'll get even less sleep. mike's life will become more complicated, too. he will then get to handle the 2 older kids' night wakings while i deal with numero tres. so i guess i should just forewarn you now: if the case haubs begin forgetting your birthday, or to return your phone calls, please have mercy. it's not you; it's probably that we're running on 3-4 hrs of sleep each night.

Jack's Third Birthday, Part II

Jack had his friends party today and enjoyed the company of many neighborhood, class, and family friends. We had about 33 people in our backyard and on our deck, which made for a fun and sometimes chaotic morning.






In honor of Jack's pool party, I made little beachy cupcakes



Even with all those friends, I don't think Jack noticed anyone else had shown up since he was in the "zone" with his best buddy, Jaxson, the whole party



He still enjoyed his cake, as always


Happy Birthday, Jack!

Happy Birthday, Jack!

Wow, three years! It's crazy that it was that long ago that my journey as a parent began, and yet three years is nothing. I'm amazed at how much he has changed in three years. I can only imagine how much change is yet to come.

I was just thinking this morning that 3 years ago he was 5 lbs and eating through an OG tube. This morning, I couldn't stop his 36-lb form from gobbling down chocolate chip pancakes.

free range parenting?

so i get the point being made here. and i think there is something to take away from this story. but i'm not 100% convinced. you can bet i'd probably not let my 9-yr-old ride the subway alone in NY. although, i suppose that depends on which line they're taking and where they're getting off.... still, not likely to happen. anyway, this article made me think a little.

the apple

Here is a funny little story, told by photos, of how my two tazmanian devils interact on a daily basis. We'll just call it, The Apple.

look alike much?

some people tell us that the boys look identical. yesterday, my mother declared they look very different. what do you think?

Jack's 3rd Birthday: Part I

this year we decided that instead of having a big party for all family and friends as we've done in the past, which usually amounted to lunch for nearly 50 people and lots of cleaning, we would do two smaller parties for jack's birthday. the first party was this morning, and was jack's only "gift" party. it was just us and both sets of grandparents, which was nice. i made brunch, there was an easygoing gift opening, and cake, of course. jack had time to spend with all the guests and play with the new toys without rushing from thing to thing. it was really the kind of party we need to do more often. here are some photos:




My parents and the boys (that's our youngest, Magnum P.I.)


Mike's parents and the boys


Jack had chocolate chip cake, in honor of his new profound (and secret) love of chocolate chips



Jack got a soccer goal and ball to practice with from my parents, and is already practicing his form.




He got some good stuff: Mike and I gave him a keyboard since he's really into music and loves "pianos," as well as 10 new Berenstain Bear books (man, I love those). Mike's parents gave him a Bilibo (have you seen these?), a kid's sized sleeping bag, Thomas the Train tee-shirts and silverware. Benjamin got a gift from each set of grandparents, so he made out well considering his birthday was 3 months ago.

Jack's friend party will be Wednesday morning. He's having a little pool party and a friend of our's is bringing along their inflatable bounce house. I'm planning on doing some fun beach-themed cupcakes and will provide snacks, but no lunch this year (it's a 10-11:30 AM thing). I'm sure he'll get a kick out of having his buddies over for some fun. I'll post some photos later this week of that little shindig! His actual birthday is Tuesday the 11th. Hard to believe he's three. Also hard to believe that every birthday but his first, there has been a new sibling around or in the works. Let's hope that trend doesn't continue :)

outings

i'll let you guess where we went last night:







why, yes, you are correct! we did go to the National Balloon Classic in Indianola. The boys were a bit more interested in the bouncy houses and train rides (Jack) and the pink chair belonging to a toddler who sat next to us (Benjamin) than the balloons, but it was an outing nonetheless. you can't go wrong with carnival food, free music, and hot air balloon sightings, right?

the boys have been on several outings lately with alison, nanny extraordinare, who likes to get them out of the house. she has taken them to the zoo and science center and library numerous times, but this week she added the beach, a fire station visit, and a planned visit next week to the iowa state fair. the boys will be SO bored when i'm back to being the full-time caregiver since i may not be quite that motivated. they seemed to have fun at the fire station. two of jack's buddies came along:




finally, some cute photos alison took of the boys eating pb and j sandwiches (why do kids insist on eating them open-faced, starting in the middle of the bread??)