yippee

It's my birthday whoop-dee-doo!

Curiosity

Cole found a dead bird in my parent's backyard today. So he picked it up. I suppose being the mother of a boy, I should get used to this sort of thing. Disgusting germ-infested bird carcass aside, I guess I can be happy that he's naturally curious and wants to learn so much about his world. Needless to say, a mad rush to disinfect him ensued.

In other "my son is such a smarty-pants" news, Cole can now count to ten by himself. I'm pretty sure this is extremely advanced for a 20-month old. I'm going to keep myself grounded about it though. Before I send off for the MENSA application, we'll wait and see if his precociousness continues. Anyway, although he knows his numbers 1-10, he likes messing with mommy. Today we practiced while we were in the car and he happily chirped, "1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9......18!!!!! Hahahahahaha!". He just really enjoyed my emphatic and silly "NO!" response. What a kid.

The fish

Okay, can I just please ask that the people who feel the need to paste the Jesus fish on their car, please behave like you believe in what it stands for? There's nothing worse than getting cut off, or some other jerky traffic move and then seeing that fish on the perpetrating car. Seriously. Where I live, there is an abundance of these and frankly, it just angers me that this symbol apparently means nothing when it comes to common driving courtesy. "I love Jesus! Except when I'm driving, then I'm an A-hole!"

Preferred snack

I would seriously like to know WHY my young son enjoys eating the dog's food. It is probably the most disgusting dog food ever. Sorry Iams, but your food stinks like fish. It's grainy and brown, and though I realize my dog loves it, it turns my stomach. So WHY oh WHY do I constantly have to fish pieces out of Cole's mouth??? He'll stuff some in his mouth and then come over to me, mouth full, knowing well that he's not allowed to eat it. Then he smiles mischeviously, which causes nasty brown fish drool to travel down his chin and land on his shirt. Gross.

Minty fresh eyeballs

My son, who is now 20 months old, has become fascinated with the process of putting in my contacts. He'll sit up on the bathroom counter and stare while I put them in. I use disposable lenses and the other day I opened a new package. He took the empty container, poked his finger in it, and then poked himself in the eye. He then blinked rapidly and looked at me, smiling. "Tic-tacs!" he exclaimed. That's one for the cuteness log book.

whoah

yup. It's been a while. I guess you can say I've been to hell and back, but I've come out of it with a beautiful new baby girl.

Caroline was born Feb. 27th via C-section and everything went as it should. The day I went home from the hospital, a dark cloud of panic hovered 'round my head and I thought it would never leave. I have never felt fear like that before. The next day I felt better and therefore decided to ignore the feelings of the day before. Bad move. I sunk into a pretty heinous depression before I realized what was happening. To make a really long story really short, I'm now on medication, have sought counseling, and life is beginning to look peachy again. Thank goodness.

Here's my gorgeous daughter seconds after birth, looking none too happy with her new digs. "Put me back in my lovely warm and wet womb people!!!"


Here she is just a few days ago, much more well-adjusted to the outside world.

Scary

Hey, wanna see something scary? Check it out (sorry it's on its side):


AND:

False labor

Whooeee! What a crazy week it's been! After a lovely start with my parents taking Cole overnight for New Year's so Craig and I could just spend some time together and actually sleep in, it all went downhill.

Monday I felt pretty crappy at the end of the day and had to sit down after doing dishes because I felt all weird in my belly. This weird feeling got worse and soon the contractions started. They never got horrible, but enough to make me pretty miserable and worried. I was timing them at about 15 minutes apart, and totally inconsistent, so I thought that it just must be false labor, so Craig took over Cole duty and I hung out on the couch with gigantic glasses of water. Having had this kind of thing happen before, I knew to just start drinking a lot of water and relax. Three and a half hours go by and I'm still not feeling better. Not worse, but not better. Of course, Craig had to ref a game that night, so I called my parents to let them know what was going on and they decided to swing by and check up on me. First, my mother insisted I call the doctor, which I didn't want to do because I was sure she would just tell me to do what I was already doing. Just to get her off my back, I called and after explaining what was happening, she told me to go to the hospital to get checked out. This was about 8:50pm. I was not happy. I didn't want to go anywhere, much less the hassle of maternity triage. So, I cried. My parents showed up 5 minutes later and I said, "So who's driving me to the hospital?". And I cried some more. My dad stayed at the house and my mom took me. I had to call Craig, who had taken his cell phone on the ice with him in case I did go in. I felt horrible calling him in the middle of his game, but he told me to. He answered the phone, on the ice, while the puck was in play, and I cried. I tried to get the words out, but they wouldn't come, and he finally yelled, "Did the doctor tell you to go to the hospital???!!!", I bawled, "YES", and he said he was on his way.

At the ER, I walked up to the desk and was still pretty flustered and started stammering to the intake lady, who just looked at me and said, "Baby?". "YES", I said. She called maternity and they came down to get me with a wheelchair. I hate wheelchairs. They make me feel dumb and completely out of control and everyone stares at you. Especially when you're pregnant and then you get these special looks of concern mixed with "Awww". I wanted to throw things at everyone I passed who gave me such looks. By the time we got to triage, I had to pee so bad, I thought I would pee my pants. Of course, I get into the hospital garb (sans panties - oh how I loved that) and begged to pee. The nurse said, "Oh sure, sweetie, why don't you give me a urine sample then." Which of course, means I had to wipe first with those stupid cleany wipey things, start to pee, stop, and then pee in the cup. This is not cool when I have to pee so bad it feels like it's going to come out of my ears.

I survived the urine sample, but then had to lay in triage with all the monitors on me for three flippin' hours and then have some on-call resident shove her arm up my hooha before they let me go home. They had recorded contractions, but nothing of significance, and my cervix was thick and closed. Hooray. I was only 31 weeks, so I don't want her coming too early. Though they confirmed I was not really in labor, I still felt like butt. The next day, I still felt like butt, but with no contractions. I have yet to have a good day since then. I'd like just a tad more energy. I think I've dropped though because most of the time when I walk, I feel like my belly is hanging on the floor.