Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all us Mom's out there.

This is the day I became a Mom, 5 years ago.

Not much going on here really, which is why I haven't posted. Well, we've been busy, but nothing exciting. We made a trip to Lockport to see Doug for a weekend at the end of April. And in driving 6 hours by myself 7 months pregnant, I realized something. It is not comfortable anymore to drive that long. So the trip to Pekin I was planning for the end of May after Tristan got out of school, got moved up to the first weekend in May. I figured there is no way I could make another 6 hour trip a month later with me and the baby being bigger. He is not happy being squished for a long drive. So we've made a couple trips, I did A LOT of shopping in Pekin. I bought my own Mother's Day gift, a new video camera. Our other one is 8 years old and looks and acts like it. The new one is so nice and little. And I've gotten to use it at a T-ball game and Tristan's school program. His program was very cute. They showed off all they learned this year and it was a Mother's Day thing too. They made little picture frames, a cute picture, and all the Mom's got a flower. And they sang a cute little "I love you Mom" song that had tears in my eyes. I wasn't the only one tearing up though, but I can always blame it on the hormones. I mean I literally can cry over stupid commercials now.

And in other semi-big news, I'm moving! A couple houses down the street. To one of the renovated ones. For as long as they took and all that, they did turn out pretty nice. You lose some room, you gain some in other places. I get a 10x10 walk in closet, another full bath, a nicer kitchen, a laundry room (instead of the washer and dryer being right across from the fridge in the kitchen), and a breakfast nook which will be our office. So the nice thing is now the baby will have a bedroom. Really nice thing, because Doug is gone and I'm pregnant, they are moving me, I don't have to do it. Just hopefully I can move sometime this week. I just want to get it done with and I'm dying to nest. And I can't nest until I move. I remember going through this with Tristan and it was weird even to me. But I just felt like everything needed to be clean and organized and done, NOW! And I'm feeling that way again, just can't do anything about it yet.

Pregnancy news, everything is going good. The baby is growing great and kicking like crazy. He is going to be one strong little bugger, he kicks hard! Still no name yet, if Doug would only agree to what I like, this would be settled. A month and a half to go, woo-hoo!

Catching up

Yep, it's been awhile. Still losing my mind though and I'm not even sleep deprived. It's been warm enough here for t-shirts lately, but all my regular t-shirts are getting a little small and short for my big belly. Yet somehow it took a week for it to dawn on me that I have MATERNITY T-SHIRTS! I borrowed some summer clothes from my niece and a friend and they are sitting right there in my bedroom. Yet did I think to put them in my closet and wear those. Nope. Then one day, I had an ah-ha moment. I bet the maternity t-shirts will fit. Duh!

So to catch up and explain all the pictures on here... Tristan and I spent Easter weekend at Lake Cumberland with Doug's parents. They were there for the week for their spring break. Our spring break was the week after theirs so we just went for the weekend. We did a little hike, which about killed me of course. There was a huge Easter egg hunt on the frisbee golf course, it was pretty cool. The ranger in charge wanted everyone to sit on a hill for a picture, so we did. Then he asked for a volunteer who isn't shy. Tristan raised his hand and got picked. All I could do was laugh because he is about the shyest boy ever around strangers. I think Tristan thought he was going to go first. But the ranger wanted help singing Peter Cottontail to start the egg hunt. Poor Tristan, he doesn't know that song, and he looked so uncomfortable. But then the egg hunt started and he was off and running up the hill. With me far far behind. I'll get to those "things I forgot about from being pregnant with Tristan" things in a minute. But it was a nice weekend, we went swimming, and to a fish hatchery (which Tristan called a fish factory), and just hung out with grandparents.

The next weekend was Tristan's birthday party. I made the mistake of telling him on Wednesday that it was his birthday. That whole day he was upset because it was his birthday but not his party and everyone was supposed to come on his birthday. No matter how I explained it, he didn't get it. Yes, today is your birthday, but people are working and at school and they can't come until Saturday and that is your party day. So the poor kid went to school on Thursday and told his teacher that it was his birthday but he didn't have a party because nobody could come. Poor kid. But I took him to lunch and shopping on Wednesday and we bought cookies for him to take to school. He got pink and blue frosted cookies because there are boys and girls in his class. Anyway, party day came and before anything else could happen, we had to decorate for the party. No breakfast or getting dressed, he got up and had to decorate everything for the party first. And of course it was Spider-Man all the way. Thankfully he picked an easy theme this year. It was almost like Christmas with all the new toys.

So after his birthday party, he was off for spring break. Oh yeah! We of course had nasty weather so we didn't do much. Well I cleaned and organized stuff, but that's not fun. At least Tristan had new toys to occupy him. But Sunday was very nice, so we went to Dinosaur World and Kentucky Down Under. Tristan is becoming interested in dinosaurs, so he loved dino world. It has life sized statues of dino's, a dino playground, a little museum, and a fossil dig. I think the fossil dig was his favorite part because you get to keep 3 fossils. And of course a cool gift shop with so much dinosaur stuff. I bought him a little play set of dino's. Then at Kentucky Down Under, they have animals from Australia. So you get to pet a kangaroo and an emu, milk a cow, learn about sheep, and reptiles, and a Camel. They have little programs to teach you about life in Australia. And they have a little cave tour, which I've been on before and I remembered the stairs but I forgot about the little itty bitty spot you have to squeeze through. They should measure people before you go down there. I made it, obviously, but it was a tight squeeze and I can't suck anything in anymore. The baby does not squish. But Tristan had a great time, it was a beautiful day. His favorite part was a little mining station they have set up. You buy a bag of dirt and rocks and mine it for gold. It has all kinds of rocks and minerals in the bag, and you do get a lot of different stuff, but Tristan is convinced that it is all gold.

Then we've got t-ball. We just had our third practice two days ago. We've been rained out for most of our practices and I have a feeling we'll miss tonight and our first game on Saturday because of rain. But Tuesday's practice was hilarious, I wish I would have videoed it. I could win AFV or something. First the poor coach was alone, he usually has two helpers but they are on leave. The coach is great, he is so good with kids and so patient. But the kids weren't paying attention and it was funny. So he gets them set up in the in-field and Tristan is the first to bat. This is the first batting practice they've had. So they're supposed to hit three times and on the the third time, run to first. Tristan hits his third and the coach yells "run to first". Tristan starts running. "No drop the bat Tristan" Tristan stops half way to first, very gently puts the bat down and starts running. The ball is heading towards first. So coach is yelling "get the ball, get the ball". Tristan stops, grabs the ball, holds it in the air and yells "time" like the coach told them to. I was dying laughing. Time to learn some rules of baseball. They did get slightly better by the end.

And for things I forgot about from being pregnant the first time. Obviously there is mommy amnesia.
1. How hard it is to do anything below your knees. I reached down to tie my shoes before hiking and couldn't reach my feet.
2. No matter how hard you try, your belly does not suck in or squish or move, except when the baby moves, then it's just weird.
3. The heartburn, reflux, whatever you want to call it. It all comes back up.
4. Climbing stairs is hard with a belly. You have to climb with your legs apart.
5. Breathing is harder when you have feet in your rib cage.
6. How out of breath I can get when climbing with feet in my rib cage. I sound so out of shape.
7. How much a good punch to the bladder from the inside hurts. That's just something you can't describe.
8. All the trips to the bathroom. Night and day.

I'm losing my mind

I've been having those days lately where I walk around the house thinking "I was going to do something, what was it?" I'll walk into the office and think, "I know there was something I was supposed to do on the computer." I just kind of walk around trying to remember why it was I came this way. It's severe mommy/pregnancy brain.

So, Tristan is morphing into a weird kid (ok he's been weird for a long time). Weird in a good way but still... He's so funny sometimes the things that come out of his mouth. Like at dinner he has started saying things like "Mmm, this is delicious Mom, thank you. You did a good job making this." Um, thanks, you strangely polite boy, where's my son? But at least he does have manners. If he doesn't want something, he'll say no thank you. He might scream it if you ask him more than once though. It'll be more like "I SAID NO THANK YOU!" Maybe he's just so happy that we are eating real food again, not just what my first trimester tummy could take. That and with Doug home last week, we actually did eat a little better. But the "did you cook this Mom? It's delicious, thank you." just cracks me up. He's just funny.





And it has finally taken a break from raining today. We have had so much stinkin rain, I don't need to see anymore. Our yard is a complete mud pit, thanks to the rain and Dora running around. I wouldn't mind rain so much if I didn't have to wipe Dora down every time she comes in. And it is actually hard to see mud on a black dog. I'm hoping and praying we have a nice dry summer like last year. No rain, no grass growing because really me mowing the grass at 8 or 9 months pregnant does not sound fun.

We got SNOW!!!

We finally got a real snow here in Kentucky. We got about a foot in a day and we still have a little left. Although it will all be melting the next couple days and then we will be flooding. But Saturday was a real snow day. Doug, Tristan, and Pandora (our dog), were all out playing and sledding for a couple hours. I stayed inside and took pictures. Lucky me, Doug is home. He's here for a week and a half and then gone again. And lucky him, he gets to go to 2 doctor appointments with me. We went on Friday for just my regular monthly check up. Everything is going good. This Friday I have another ultra sound, so Doug will actually get to go to one while he's here. Timing just worked out so nice this time.

It's a ...?

the big one is a leg, it's the little bump.

I'll tell you what it is. It's another freakin boy! That was pretty much my reaction, well the G-rated version of my reaction. I may have cussed a little more and ranted and raved for a little bit. Ok I still am. I don't want a boy. I want a girl. Can't they cut something off, poke it in, or something? And just like with Tristan's ultrasound, I didn't have to be told what it was. I could see it plan as day. It's an outie, not an innie. So it seems when Tristan was saying "I know it's a girl because I'm smart," well he's not so smart about these things. But he's ok with it. He thinks because it's a boy, he'll like spider-man too. So now Tristan wants to buy the baby spider-man things. We have to take the pink outfit Tristan bought the baby back and get a blue one. I told Tristan this and he said "why, he can wear my old clothes." Well we still have to take the pink outfit back. Anyway, I'm slowly coming to terms with the whole "it's a boy" thing. I went to babies-r-us Saturday (do not go there on a weekend) and registered. Tristan helped, he used the laser gun to shoot everything we wanted. I let him pick some of the not so important things. I picked the good stuff like diaper pail and bath tub. I still have so much stuff from Tristan that I don't really need much and didn't need to register, but I wanted the free stuff.

This little boy is a mover and shaker in my belly. But not very cooperative. He is facing me so I haven't seen his face and the doctor can't get a good shot of everything. Just means I get another ultrasound.

For those of you who know how I drive, you'll think this is funny. Tristan has taken an odd interest in racing. He's watched the Cars movie and that's about it until we went to visit my parents and my Dad watched the Daytona 500. But Tristan wants to go to a race. And he thinks our car needs flames on it because flames make you go faster and our car is a race car. Our car is a light blue Dodge Grand Caravan. I tried to explain that flames on a mini-van would not look good. But he just keeps up with "but it's a race car". Why is our car a race car? Because I drive fast and pass people, Tristan's favorite thing. Talk about a back seat driver. He'll sit in his seat yelling "pass them, pass them, go faster!" And maybe that's why I'm freakishly anal about what car seats I buy. I bought the baby a new carrier car seat after much research and comparing. I always research the car seats and buy the best crash test one, or at least the top one that fits and I like.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood!

Some call it our gated community. Some call it the ghetto. Some call it annoying when you have to navigate through all the consturction vehicles, big trucks, concrete trucks.... But this is where I live. What was Van Voohris is now Chesnut Glen. There is consturction all over our housing area. These will be the lower enlisted houses, after they fix them up a bit. But here are some pictures of my neighborhood.


I feel so safe.

Only in Kentucky

I'm filling out one of those general medical history forms and came to a question that still has tears in my eyes.

"Are you and the baby's father related by blood (eg. cousins)? If yes how are you related?

Seriously, this is something they have to ask so often it's on the form? So many jokes are going through my head. Oh well, it made my day!