Dillierama

Pregnancy doesn't suck: Reason #8

It's worth it!

I've wanted to be a mom ever since I can remember wanting anything, and for a time, I didn't think it would ever happen.  I dealt with infertility for a few years during my first marriage (while it turned out to be a very good thing we didn't have children together, it was still very painful for me at the time) and I miscarried John's and my first pregnancy in the third month.  When we had Alex, he was literally a dream come true for me.  He was everything I'd ever wanted.  Having a healthy son made me the happiest person in the world. 

I don't take for granted the fact that John and I have been able to conceive so easily.  I don't for a second take for granted that I have my perfect Alex and have so far had a great second pregnancy.  I know exactly how lucky I am. 

The throwing up, the heartburn, sciatica, exhaustion, the fact that my bladder is the size of a tic tac...none of this matters.  It's cliche, but when it's all over, and I'm holding my baby, I know I would do it all again, even go through much, much worse if it means I get to have the privilege of being this child's mother.  It's worth it.  It really, really is.

Swistle attempts to sort through John's naming rules

When Swistle started up her baby naming blog, I KNEW I had to write in.  I thought John's rules would prove to be challenging (and amusing).  I was right.

Click here for the full post.  Interestingly, Evan James seems to be the clear winner in the poll followed by a tie between Max James (our current favorite) and Henry James (which John doesn't like).  We do like Evan James (or Evan John), so I think we'll add that to the short list until John can find a reason to veto it.

I've always liked the name Evan and considered it for Alex along with Ethan.  Ethan is WAY too popular and I didn't really consider it for Baby 2.0.  My only problem with Evan is it seems too "soft".  I mean, Evan sounds like a guy who writes poetry and majors in art history.  What if he's a bad ass?  What if he wants to be a rock star?  What if he wants to be a Gladiator?  I mean, how intimidating can he be with a name like Evan?  Max just seems more flexible.  He could be Max, the sensitive guy who plays the acoustic guitar at the local coffee shop on Thursday nights or he could be MAXIMUS, HARBINGER OF PAIN!

Alexisms

Alex is obsessed with playing in his baby brother's room.  I have to wonder if he recognizes all his old stuff and just figures it's still his.  One of the things he likes playing with is the empty Diaper Genie, which still smells a little ripe, depsite it not having had diapers in it for well over a year.  Despite the fact that it's stinky, Alex insists on playing with it, all the while saying "Eeew! Smells like poo poo in der!"

:::

Alex thinks that my belly button is a porthole to where his baby brother lives.  Which, makes sense really.  He likes to stick his finger in there and declare "I touch baby budder!"  He'll talk into my belly button "Hi baby budder! Come out!"  and he'll try to stick toys into it "baby budder look at my car!"

:::

We've been working on recognizing colors lately.  His favorite color is green and can identify it 100% of the time, but isn't so good at the rest of the colors.  To help him catch on to the other colors, I ask him to identify colors in everyday objects as we go about our days.  Things like "what color cars to do you see?"  "What colors are on this box?"  "What color is on this page of that book?"  and so on.  He's gotten so used to it, he now will identify colors he sees without my asking. For instance, after he poops in the potty, he'll turn around and say "I see green poo poo, I see yellow poo poo, I see brown poo poo..."

Wasting my free time

It's 7:30.

Alex is asleep.

John is at a hockey game.

There are no chores to be done.

I have the whole evening to myself.

I can do anything I want.  The night is young and it's all mine baby!

Sadly, the only thing that sounds appealing is to curl up in bed with a book until I pass out.  That will probably happen at 8:30.

God, I've gotten so boring.

Anemic

I got my blood test results back from my test for gestational diabetes (which I don't have thankfully) and found that I am not surprisingly anemic.  I actually suspected as much as I've had a few warning signs recently:

• I'm crazy tired
• Shortness of breath
• disturbing fantasies involving consumption of a bloody steak
• Obsession with watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer (jury is still out on whether or not this is a symptom of anemia)

I still, at seven months pregnant, can't choke down my prenatal vitamins, so it's no wonder I'm not getting enough iron.  I was told to start taking Alex's gummy bear vitamins and eat a bowl of shredded wheat every day and it should make me feel better.

I'm glad to have an official diagnosis of anemia rather than my just being a lazy vampire-addicted carnivore.  At least I can do something about anemia.

What is that supposed to mean?

I got a haircut this weekend.  I'd been needing one for quite a while, my hair had really gotten WAY too long.  I don't like my hair to be much past my shoulders, but for the last few months it's been slowly creeping down my back to the point where I officially had long hair.

With our tight budget in mind, I thought, Hey!  I'll just cut it myself!  I know, it sounds crazy now, but at the time, I swear, it made perfect sense.  So I washed and combed my hair and put it up in a ponytail and whacked off about two inches of it.  Again, at the time, this seemed like the most brilliant of plans.  Turns out, it wasn't.  It wasn't the worst haircut I'd ever had, but it wasn't good.  Not good at all.  Luckily I'd only lopped off a couple of inches and had plenty to work with when I went to the salon to get it fixed. 

I ended up with my hair length a couple of inches below my ears with some layers.  Basically the haircut I always get.  I like it just fine.  John says it's cute.  But then, I saw my neighbor this morning and she said to me "Oh, you got your hair cut.  Now you look your age."  Now tell me, what is that supposed to mean?  Do I look older?  Younger?  Better?  Worse?  I mean geez, I'm only 30.  I think I'm at that age where I could probably get away with any haircut and still look 30.  30's not old or young really, so any 'do short of "flock of seagulls" works right?  But still, it bugs me.  What did I look like before if it wasn't 30?

Easter weekend recap

All three of us, at some point during this weekend ended up sick with a cold.  Alex's started on Thursday, I got it Friday, John finally got sick on Sunday.  Despite being sick, we managed to have a pretty productive weekend thanks to my nesting instinct kicking in on Saturday morning.

I know it's nesting due to the fact that I spent HOURS cleaning things having nothing to do with anything actually needing to be done.  Well, I did throw everything machine washable into the laundry, so that was helpful, but I didn't mop the floors, dust, vaccuum... no, my mission was to clean and organize the boys' rooms. 

I went through Alex's closet which has been my dumping ground for things he's outgrown for two years.  I went through everything and sorted into "throw away" and "save for baby brother" piles.  I even discovered some 3T sized clothing I'd stuffed in there waiting for Alex to grow into them.  SCORE!  I then moved around Alex's furniture, made John take the changing table out to the shed (we're not using it for Baby 2.0), mopped his wood floors and organized all of his six million stuffed animals.

Next I moved on to the guest/storage room that will become the new baby's nursery.  It was full of all kinds of crap that I went through and put away in more appropriate places.  I sorted out all of Alex's old 0-3 month clothes, folded and put them in the baby's dresser (which I had to wash because Alex had snuck in there with a spray bottle of aloe vera a few days ago turning the dresser from white to a slimy bright green), went through the house finding all of the infant toys and put them in the new nursery so I can disinfect them all, I took apart Alex's old carseat and hand washed all the straps and pad in the kitchen sink.  We decided to wait on painting the nursery because we'll just let him pick a color he likes when we move him into a big boy bed, so it will just be boring white for the time being, otherwise, I'm sure I'd have painted the room yesterday too.  We still need to bring in the baby's beds from storage (a cradle for our room and a crib for the nursery) and I need to buy new crib bedding (Alex trashed his).  I'm going to have Alex do some finger painting that I can frame and hang up in there and the nursery will be finished.  We're almost ready for the baby!  Three months early.

Sunday we were all sick, so unfortunately, most of our day was spent in front of the TV watching "the puppy show" (101 dalmations, Alex's new obsession).  We did make it outdoors for an egg hunt (John had spent Saturday afternoon raking all the leaves) and John and Alex spent some quality guy time putting fake tattoos on each other. 

Alex got spoiled rotten by both Grandma Babs (my mom) and Grandpa Mark who gave him an Easter basket full of cars and Grandma Diane (John's mom) gave him a big stuffed race car and a bunch of sports balls.  I let Alex eat an enormous amount of jelly beans and Skittles throughout the day, causing him to turn into a cranky little beast just before we left to meet John's family for Easter dinner.  Luckily, he shaped up by the time we got to the resturaunt and even ate a big bowl of spaghetti and a square of red jello (and staining his new pants). 

All in all, despite being sick, it was a nice weekend.  The weather was good, so it's a shame we spent it all indoors, but Alex and I are feeling better today, so hopefully we'll get to the park to make up for it.

A post just chock full of TMI

For some reason, none of the pregnancy books or websites address this problem, but I need to decide what to do with my bikini area.  I can't see anything down there anymore, so I'm not really sure of the state of things, but I'm certain it can't be good.  Having no desire to approach my nethers blindly with razor blade nor scissors, I'm considering having a professional take care of the situation.  I've never done that before, so naturally, I'm a bit hesitant about having someone else manage my personal affairs.  Not to mention pregnancy increases blood flow to these parts resulting in what I imagine could become some kind of horrific bloodbath psychologically scarring all involved. 

I suppose I could enlist the help of my husband, but a) I'm not sure about his styling abilities and b) the man can't even look at my breasts without wanting to bone me, I doubt he'll get very far with the trimmer without needing a quickie and then, naturally, he'll be too tired to finish the job and I'll be all lopsided until he feels like tackling the shubbery again.

I suppose I could just go for the "if I can't see it, it's not a problem" solution, but I feel that I owe my doctor and nurses to at least TRY to make the view presentable. 

It's a good thing

So the non-napping is actually going quite well.  I'm not wasting hours of our afternoon fighting with Alex to get him to go to sleep, I'm not stuck in the house moving about as quietly as possible for fear he'll wake up and he's going to bed around 7:30 or 8:00 at night giving John and me some time alone together.

Last night Alex fell asleep while we were watching Dancing with the Stars (YAY PENN!) at 7:30 and we had the whole rest of the evening to ourselves.  We were free to do whatever we wanted.  We could dance around naked, we could play strip poker, we could snuggle in front of the fire and talk about our feelings, we could do anything we wanted to do!  We ended up watching three episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD.  Oh, we're exciting.  We live on the edge.

Another unexpected benefit has been that Alex and I are watching less TV.  I let him watch Curious George in the morning, then we turn it off and play or go out and do stuff, then in the late afternoon I let him pick a movie to watch so I can have some downtime.  John comes home around 6:30 or 7:00 and plays with Alex before he goes to sleep while I check my email and catch up my bloglines.  This way, our family time isn't spent in front of the TV, in fact, right now, I'm listening to John and Alex playing upstairs (via the baby monitor).  It's funny how giving up his afternoon nap has completely changed our family dynamic. 

Lucky

I was just laying in bed with my beautiful, perfect son Alex snuggled up sleeping on my left arm and my right arm draped over my belly feeling my new baby kicking and I realized I am the luckiest person in the world.  What did I ever do to deserve so much happiness?

I could have laid like that all morning long, but sadly, I had to pee.