Wednesday, July 27, 2011

catching up

*20 + 3*

Because the daily blogging experiment has clearly ended... it's time to catch up. Not a lot going on in our lives. Another bit of drywall fell from the ceiling yesterday - "boom", Noah told me, when it happened while I was on the phone with him. We signed a contract with a roofer. The whole roof will be replaced for about $7000 on august 6th, the day before we leave for michigan. yikes. it better not ra*n that day, or we'll be in trouble. i am so desperate for vacation to get here, i don't want to delay it even a day!

baby k is moving like crazy. CRAZY! she's tap dancing on my bladder non-stop. i swear she doesn't sleep. i've been feeling pretty well, though over the weekend, fell asleep super early several nights in a row, and tonight the third late night (ugh) in a row. i'm trying to eat well, but find that i am starting to get full faster. fortunately, heartburn and indigestion are still at bay. i pee a lot, though i've been trying to drink a lot of water. water is actually the drink i crave the most. well, that and a variety of cocktails.

work has been slow, so i've been trying to get ahead. somewhat unsuccessfully, but i'm making attempts.

we've had SO MANY busy weekends lately. we've done something at least one of the weekend days every weekend this month. it's partially because ben's been working a lot of overtime, mainly friday and/or saturday nights, so i either do something with noah on saturday to break up the long day and/or do something fun with daddy on sundays. we've been to cosley zoo, taste of lombard, cubs game, fourth of july fireworks/parade, cantigny park, monkey joe's, train to chicago/millenium park, peck farm butterfly house, and just fun stuff around the house - pool, baseball, bubbles, etc. we have a pool pass too, but have only used it a few times. shame on us. we tried to go one evening last week, but the pool was closed for a swim meet. hmph. i'm hoping to go a time or two more before vacation to get noah ready for the lake.

speaking of, noah seems very excited about going to the lake. he talks about splashing in the water blah blah, but the lake is SO COLD up there, that i'm afraid he'll get a toe in, and that will be the end of it. I'M a wimp about going in the frigid lake, so we'll see if we can actually (hopefully) get him (and me) in the lake this year!

Monday, July 18, 2011

IT'S A .....................

*19 + 2*

Girl? With 70% confidence, the OB told us we're having a girl. That's not quite the percentage I was hoping to walk away with. Let me back track...

Friday (18+6) was our "20 week ultrasound". Not quite 20 weeks, but close enough. I'd pushed to get it on the early side because a) I wanted to see the baby/find out the gender, and b) I wanted to know how things were going, placenta wise.

I decided the afternoon of the u/s to eat a hot fudge sundae from McDonald's and a Little Debbie brownie with the intent of waking up the baby, not making things difficult. Apparently, I had a little too much sugar, because while we were waiting for the doctor (which took an eternity, thanks to the chick in the next room bemoaning her Lovenox shot), baby was going crazy. It was moving a ton, and while I thought I felt it a few weeks back, now I know I'm definitely feeling it, and have almost everyday since.

OB finally came in for u/s and asked if we wanted him to "look". We said heck yeah! And so it began, with a squirmy little baby, moving all over, making it hard for the doctor to get many good pictures. He did point out both sides of the brain, four chambers of the heart, stomach, arms, and legs, and took measurements of the head (right on target), torso (also on target), and legs (measuring 20 weeks, shocking). Several times, he tried to see between the legs. He tried going at it a couple different ways, but the baby, despite all the movement, would not spread it's legs.

Finally, in a last ditch attempt, there was an image that flashed by. He stepped the frames back, back, back, and then there were three lines, the telltale sign of a girl. But the way he said it, it was clear he wasn't certain. My heart was beating so hard in anticipation of the announcement, I thought it would pop out of my chest. But the "announcement" was anticlimactic. I had imagined that I would weep or jump off the table at the pronouncement of a girl, but nothing. Sadly, I had no reaction. I guess there was some disappointment that there was no clear answer, and also shock that there was potential that my second child could be a little girl.

The doctor helped me sit up, I asked him how certain he was it was a girl. He told me he was about 70% sure, but advised us not to start shopping for pink or painting the walls of the nursery. I asked about my placenta situation (which he had pointed out on the u/s screen) and whether the amount of movement was as expected. He said that it hadn't moved much, but that was what he expected based on the size of my uterus at this point. He said he'd do another u/s with my glucose test around 24 weeks. SO, we don't quite know the gender now, but at least I know that in another month or so, we will get a firm answer. It's gonna be a long month.

In the meantime, we are starting to talk about baby sister to Noah, and say "she" between the two of us. Outside of that, we are cautiously optimistic. I have the image of the "three lines", which are pretty clear, but obviously, I don't want to cling to the idea of a girl, just in case it is a boy. I will be happy either way because I know it's healthy and growing how it should be, but now that the more real possibility of a girl has been dangled in front of me, I think I want it to be so now more than ever.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

boring

*18 + 5*

not a lot new to report. we closed on the loan for the rav yesterday and ben took the check to the dealership, so it's 100% officially ours. :)

got another quote for the roof, and we're waiting on another to come in. we're hoping to make a decision as soon as the last quote comes in so that we can hopefully get the roof done before vacation, which is three weeks away...

tomorrow's our big reveal, assuming it doesn't get canceled like noah's mid-pregnancy ultrasounds did. i'm pretty much assuming it'll be be canceled so that if it is, i won't be so devastated. and if it happens, i will be thrilled!

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

ACK!!!

*18 + 3*

Yeah, so I know I said daily blogging in July.... well it started off I was tired, then I forgot, then... well, let's talk about my last few days.

Friday -
Went out for "drinks" after work and had to run an errand on my way home. Got home in time to kiss Noah good night. I think I was so tired once I sat down that I didn't even look at the computer.

Saturday -
Ben worked ALL day. He's been picking up a lot of overtime lately, working til 11pm on some Fridays and Saturdays. It's good money, but makes for a looooooong day for mommy. It was hot out on Saturday, and I contemplated taking Noah someplace fun, but none of Noah's BFFs were free, so instead I busted out the baby pool. Noah was in it for close to two hours, just splashing and cracking me up with his self-talk and one-liners. I'm not even sure what else we did Saturday, but I do know that I was planning on going to Target but my mom's Jeep wouldn't start. Change of plans - I ordered a pizza and mom and Jeff came over to check out the car. Dead battery. Long day on my own with a two year old... I think I forgot I had a blog.

Sunday -
This is when my weekend went south. We've known since we bought our house that it needed a new roof. The roof is old, original to the 1960s era house. We also knew there was some urgency because a while back we noticed a crack in the ceiling of our living room, perpendicular to the apex of the cathedral ceiling. Well, on Sunday, the crack suddenly seemed to worsen. I took a "before" picture around noon that day.



We left shortly after I took the pic to spend a few hours at Cantigny. Noah had a blast there - he loved checking out the tanks and the very cool museum that's so much better than when I was a kid. And then there was the splash pad. I wasn't sure what he'd think, but he LOVED it. He probably could've stayed in the water all day if we'd let him. We can't wait to take him back, and next time hopefully bring a picnic and some friends.



When we got home, the crack seemed even worse and we realized part of the ceiling was going to collapse. Ben moved everything on that size of the room to the other side, and around dinner time (7pm-ish), he put down a tarp and the baby pool to "catch" whatever fell when the time came. We talked with Noah about what was going to happen so he wouldn't freak out when the roof came crashing down, and around 9pm, while we were tucking him into bed we heard it.

CRASH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!





At first it scared the crap out of me, then it grossed me out. The odor was awful - musty, mildewy, damp wood. And the ants. Blech. Big ones, little ones, coming into my house. Sick. So then Ben went about cleaning up the drywall and insulation, and taped a tarp to the ceiling to hopefully keep the ants and odor out of the house and also so we didn't have this huge hole exposed. Then reality set it. Don't forget, we were on the verge of buying a new car! Ben emailed several roofing places that night, in hopes of getting some quotes on Monday.

Monday -
I didn't sleep well that night between the gross factor, and the anguish over the cost of fixing the roof/ceiling and buying the new car (which our loan had been approved for on Saturday). I woke up to the sound of the fan going on and off and the monitor beeping - sounds which mean flickering power. And where there's brown-outs, there's storms. As soon as I became coherent, the wind started whipping and the rain started pouring down. Ben and I both ran downstairs to witness what started as a drip drip drip and became a steady stream... this explained A LOT about what had happened to our ceiling.

Later than day, our 2nd roof estimate came in (the 1st was on Wednesday before the urgency set in). The roofer said it looked like the roof was done poorly to begin with and guessed that the damaged spot had been leaking for upwards of 10 years.

Ben and I went back and forth all day about what to do - patch the roof or fix it, buy the car or a smaller car and how much money do we put down. Ben crunched numbers all day, and decided that we WOULD buy the Rav 4 and WOULD fully replace the roof.

As for the roof, we're still waiting on another quote or two, but are hoping to get a completely new roof in the next few weeks. As for the CAR, it's ours! We went Monday night and picked it up. We are going tomorrow to close on our loan, and finalize the deal.

So needless to say, blogging has been kind of far from the forefront of my mind. I'll try to do better. We have a big day coming up on Friday - our big reveal ultrasound!!

I leave you with this - a belly picture from today:

Thursday, July 7, 2011

today

17+5

you know, i wish i was creative. i'd like to write something interesting and inspiring like so many of the other amazing blogs i read, but - i'm not creative. so instead, my day:

not much exciting to report today. we went and applied for financing for a new car, and as i type this, ben is composing an email or emails to toyota and/or pugi regarding negotiating a price on a car. hopefully we'll own a new car by sometime next week. until then, i'm driving my mom's jeep, which noah is happy about.

noah often likes to see my belly and say hi/hug/kiss the baby. tonight i asked him if he could tell the baby a story. this is how it went: "once upon a time, there was a boy named noah. and gigi. they liked. they went in the pool. the end." i love that it had all the components of a good story. once upon a time, main characters with a purpose, and the end. he told that same story twice, and i was caught between laughing and crying at how brilliant he is.

i think i failed to comment on how noah fell out of bed (we think) again this past weekend. at 4am on sunday morning, we here "maaa-meeee. come here. maaa-meee!" ben pops the door open and noah is standing at the door. good thing his door sticks, or he'd have probably come crawling into our bed!!

noah says some funny things these days. "that's a great idea." "we here yet?" "this is my grandma/mommy." - let me explain that last one. today at klein creek farm, he introduced the chickens to my mother-in-law, and tonight at the mall, he introduced the "guys" in the window (the headless mannequins) to his mommy, hand gesture and all. he's something, that kid.

***

sometimes i just stare at him in amazement that he's mine, that's he's so big, that he's so smart, and that soon, we'll have any other one who will likely look just like him. i know how lucky we are to have noah and to have this babe on the way. i try to remind myself everyday of that and to enjoy my pregnancy, since it will most likely (save for a miracle) be my last.

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

SOLD

*17 + 4*

soooooooooo tired tonight after being out late last night, and the night before that, and the two nights before that.... but long story short, the highlight of the day is that WE SOLD MY CAR!! i was a teeny bit sad to see it go, but did a dance of joy when it was and the $2000 was in my hand. tomorrow we are going to the credit union to work out the financing, and hopefully this weekend, we'll be buying a new car!

anniversary

*17+3*

UGH. so much for my daily july blogs!! four days in, i totally let it slide! oh well. here's the re-cap of the past few days:

yesterday was the 4th of july and of course, everyone under the sun showed up for the wheaton parade! it was great watching the kids (noah, grant, & anna) get excited about the trucks, floats, bands, clowns, etc. they got SO MUCH candy, it was awesome. they got up and danced when there was music and did a great job of staying put and making it an enjoyable experience for mommies and daddies as well.

after the parade, we picnic-ed at great grandma's/katie's house. grandma was at the cabin, but it wouldn't be the 4th without eating in her yard after the parade. we stayed for several hours before deciding it was time to get crabby to bed.

we got noah down for nap around 3:00, and i promptly fell asleep on the couch watching the Cubs game. around 5:15, ben woke me up and said we were going to my mom's for BBQ dinner at 5:30. i was a bit of a zombie, but we spent a few hours there before coming home and crashing.

today was back to the grind. ugh. there's nothing harder than going back to work after a long, BUSY weekend. it was possibly the busiest weekend i've had in several months, and it made today rough.

however, today is our 8 year anniversary, and we had plans to go to dinner after my 6:30 OB appt. we went to the appt and the waiting room was verrrry full. the appt went well. i didn't get the exact heart rat but the doc said it was good. we scheduled the BIG ultrasound for next friday - hope it doesn't get rescheduled like it did with noah. we got out of there just before 7:30, and from there headed to Naperville Toyota, where we'd made arrangements to test drive a Rav4. We drove what we both agreed is a front runner - I am a huge Toyota fan to begin with and the size of the backseat and the cargo space are big pros for me. They desparately wanted us to sign the dotted line tonight, but we finally had to tell them it was our anniversary and we were on our way to dinner before they cut us loose. from there we headed to francesca's in naperville, where i proceeded to eat WAY too much (appetizer, salad, huge salmon entree, cappucino, dessert, and a bonus dessert because the server discovered it was our anniversary).

at close to 11:00, we finally headed to mom's to pick up noah, who is the sweetest sleepy head. he said "hi mommy" when he saw me and reached out to hold my hand. when we got home, daddy told him we were going to buy a car that's like a jeep. noah said he wanted the jeep, he wanted the new car, but when we had to say that we didn't get it, he started crying, big crocodile tears and all. finally ben brought him a toy car, and he calmed down. i laid him down, pet his head, his eyes rolled around in his head, and he was out. :) he's the best boy ever.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Cubs Win!!

*17 +1*

This blogging everyday thing is gonna be hard!! it's almost 11pm, post-fireworks and mama's tired... I'll keep it brief.

Last night, Ben worked late, so I decided to join the Bergers, the Zemans, and a few others from work for the Modern Day Romeos concert at the Taste of Lombard. Our coworker Justin is in the band, and I've been wanting to see them play for awhile, so I texted Julie & Amy, and it was so. Noah was a gem. I don't know if it's his age or her personality, but he's just so well behaved in those sort of setting. He knows the rules - stay close and behave - and he did. While the other kiddos were playing chase with mom and dad (who were not willing participants), Noah just kind of circled the group, and only wandered away when I asked him to go dance. He had such a great time.

Today, we went to our last Cubs game of the year - this one against the Sox - and YAY! They won!! We got there a bit late, but made it to the end of the game, and even squeezed in a short nap between the game and the fireworks. We met the Bergers and Deckers, and Steph, Richard, Brian, & Evelyn at the county complex to watch the fireworks. It was our first time since we've lived in our house that we've GONE to the fireworks. We can see most of the display from our sideyard, but since we hadn't made plans ahead of time, and I'm not a fan of watching the fireworks alone, I made the executive decision that we were going to go.

Noah has been kind of weird about the neighbors fireworks that they have been randomly setting off, and saying that he doesn't like the fireworks. I told him he could wear earmuffs if the fireworks were too loud (not thinking he'd remember I said that). Shortly after the show started he said I want my earmuffs. So, I kindly obliged.... He took them off after a few minutes but it made for some funny pictures!

Tomorrow morning - parade and BBQ!!

Saturday, July 2, 2011

2T energy burst??

*17 weeks*

Ben's working late tonight. He's picked up a lot of Friday and Saturday night overtime this summer, so that we can have a little extra money for baby/car/roof/whatever else might financially attack us in 2011. (The roof is a new issue. Guy's coming Weds to take a look to see if we can patch an area that is *clearly* leaking, by the obvious water damage to the ceiling in our living room, or if we have to replace the whole thing. Ben's thinking patch, but I'm afraid of what roof guy might find.)

Anyways, nights Ben works late are tough, especially if I allow myself to be confined to the house like I did last weekend, when he worked THREE late nights in a row, and I was in the beginning stages of my nasty illness. But today? Well that's a different story!

I had decided last night, and told Noah that I'd take him to Cosley Zoo today. This morning, I decided that the pool would be fun too. So Gaga came over and rode to Cosley with us, where we met Julie, Scott (sometimes called Scoot by Noah) and Grant. Noah was a bit of a terror. Doesn't help that mommy can move very fast whilst pregnant and is quickly irritated when ignored by feisty two point five year olds... It was HOT and sticky out, so we did the rounds at Cosley, and mommy, Gaga, & Noah were off to Northside Pool.

Northside Pool is a little ghetto by Wheaton standards, but I think that's why I love it. We have a pool pass this year, and have so far not been to Rice Lake. Honestly, I'll be happy spending the whole summer at the baby pool at Northside. We got there right at 12 when it opened, and like when we went on Father's Day, it was pretty dead. Perfect! We stayed about an hour, and that was that.

Now Noah's sleeping HARD while I watch the Cubs and Sox game, and text the Berger's and Zeman's to make plans for the evening. I do believe the 2T energy burst may have finally arrived! Thank the gods! I've been pretty annoyed at it for staying in hiding this past month, when there is SOOOO much to do around my house. But instead, I'll leave the mess for another day and take Noah to Taste of Lombard tonight with his friends Gigi and Anna for some tunes from my coworker's band, Modern Day Romeos.

Happy Saturday!

Friday, July 1, 2011

july challenge

*16 wks, 6 days*

last week, i thought about how i don't blog very often, and decided to challenge myself to blog every day in july. it's gonna be tough, but since i *think* the 2T energy is starting to make it's appearance, i'm gonna try. here goes:

yesterday, i picked up noah and we went to downtown wheaton to watch trains. not only that, but we stopped at starbucks, got mama a frappucino, and noah a chocolate milk, and sat on a bench enjoying the view.

today, i finally went to the doctor (general doc, not OB) because i was tired of the sinus pressure and generally feeling crappy. i made the appt late yesterday, and of course by this morning i was feeling significantly better. not 100% so i kept the appt, and kindly accepted the z-pack of antibiotics to help just the junk outta my head. hopefully i'll start getting back to normal before long so this entire weekend isn't wasted on feeling like crap!

happy fourth of july weekend!!