Friday

We're off to Canada this evening.  I get to sit and work quietly for a few more hours, before running to daycare to get Ethan, giving him a snack and a bath, throwing the rest of our suitcases in the car and driving to Daniel's office to pick him up so that we can head North.  And I'm in my typical pre-Canada trip mood, which means I'm a total snot and have been picking fights with Daniel for the last day.  I never am in a good mood pre-Canada, but my mood is a doozy this time, thanks to the week of sickness and the upcoming visit from my parents and second long car trip that we have next week. And I'm stressing a bit about leaving Ethan with his grandparents tomorrow night, since he's been sick with the stomach flu, and is teething and now seems to have a cold too. I don't even know what to tell them in terms of what to feed him, since I can't figure out what he's going to want to eat and what's going to stay down!  Makes packing quite a challenge. 

Seriously, I try to be in a good mood before these things. Really. Not hard enough, though. I really need to start praying more about my mood. But as soon as I start thinking about going to Canada and staying in my in-laws tiny home or having people in my own tiny home, I start to feel claustrophobic and stressed. I just do not deal well with having people around me all the time. I know I was also whining about being alone earlier this week, and it's true, I don't like that either. I need a happy medium. Short visits from people or meeting up outside my home.  

I've been so dreadful that Daniel is threatening to not take me to Canada anymore after this.  I'm trying to be upset about that idea. Truthfully, there's no way this is even going to be an issue again for a while, since I'm not planning to be in the car for this long again after my Portland trip next week, and then after New Baby is born, she (and therefore I) can't go to  Canada until her passport comes in.  So we're probably looking at another 6 months or so before this comes up again.  

I just wish that life doled things out in a little bit more moderation.  Stomach flu one week, one-year molars the next, visit to the in-laws a month later, visit from parents after that, trip to stay in grandmother's tiny home with not enough beds and one bathroom definitely months after that.  Like I said, I'm always a brat before any one of these things, but today I feel so overwhelmed by all of it coming at once and coming at the same time that I'm too pregnant to really sleep well... it's only noon and it's been a rough day already.  Let's just say it's the kind of day where pie gets eaten for breakfast.  

Anyway, I should focus on work for a while.  That's fairly calm today, at least. Just reading some articles and writing a report. Nothing stressful. Thank goodness!

Okay, so not our most romantic anniversary ever

Daniel and I definitely didn't waste any time getting past that whole newlywed-living in a happy bubble thing. Nope, it was straight to reality for us.  I was pregnant with Ethan by our 1st wedding anniversary and now pregnant with New Baby by our 3rd.  It's the trade off of marrying someone 10 years my senior, I suppose. We're fairly financially stable, but didn't want to put off things like having kids for very long. 

But, you know what? It's fine with me.  As I told Daniel last night, there's no one I'd rather be going through all this stuff with, and nowhere in life I'd rather be than with him.  And I said that at the END of the day that I will now detail for you.

Morning- Ethan threw up breakfast. I did laundry, Ethan got his 12th bath of the last 24 hour period.  Then I did more laundry. Daniel went to work.

Afternoon- Daniel calls to tell me that the septic tank on our rental property has a problem and it looks like it's going to mean major repairs. Ethan develops a fever of 101. Ethan naps, thanks to Baby Advil, and I do more laundry. And clean. At least I have a really clean condo right now.

Late afternoon-Daniel calls to tell me that the repairs for THAT day are $1500, and will probably be another $1000+ for the repairs that need to be done on Thursday.  Okey dokey.  Ethan develops diarrhea. I start feeling sick.

Evening- Daniel comes home with a beautiful bouquet of roses. Ethan goes through many more diapers.  We eat take-out Pho, while I lie on the couch and feel tired and ill. I am wearing pajamas by this point, but, since it's our anniversary, am at least wearing pretty ones.  

11 PM- Ethan joins us in our bed, because he's feverish and doesn't want to be alone. When he wakes up, we give him a bottle, since we're worried about his lack of wet diapers that day.  15 minutes later, he throws up the bottle, all over Daniel, who valiantly sacrifices himself to save our mattress.  I do laundry.

Midnight- We fall into an exhausted sleep, but we're holding hands. 

So far Daniel and I are still feeling fairly well. I think I've caught a very minor version of the bug, but nothing that will affect our travels. And the snow (oh yes, we woke up to several inches of snow!) seems to be melting, so hopefully we'll be able to make it to Canada tomorrow after work.  The planning for who is picking up Ethan, driving where, etc. in order to get out of here before it gets too late tomorrow night- pretty much on the scale of a military maneuver of some sort. But I think we can pull it off.

Anyway, Ethan's napping now and I'm (surprise!) doing laundry.  And I have a group meeting to call in for now, so should wrap this up and go discuss my uselessness-workwise with my coworkers. 

Happy 3rd anniversary to me!

Today is our third wedding anniversary. We're celebrating it by me staying home and cleaning up vomit, and Daniel going to work. We are very romantic :)  Not sure if we're making progress on the stomach bug or not- Ethan's dinner of soup and jello stayed down, but his breakfast today of toast and banana did not. You wanted to know all the details, I'm sure.  I aim to please.

So, Ethan and I are staying in again today, just resting up and hoping for wellness soon!  We did both change out of our pajamas this morning, unlike yesterday, so that's progress of one type!

Anyway, I was asking Daniel this morning what we did on our first anniversary, and neither of us could remember. Conveniently, I was blogging already back then, so could just go look at my archives and find out! Handy little thing, this blog.

It's actually okay that today is not the most exciting anniversary, as we planned all along to celebrate this weekend up in Vancouver. We have hotel reservations at a nice hotel and dinner reservations at a jazz club/restaurant. So that should be fun.  And we already took our annual visit to Smith Tower for our yearly picture on the spot where we got married. For your viewing pleasure, here are the photos!  The chair that I'm sitting in in the photos is called the Wishing Chair. From the Smith Tower website: 

The crown jewel of the Smith Tower is the legendary 35th floor Chinese Room. The room’s name derives from the extensive carved wood and porcelain ceiling and the elaborately carved blackwood furniture that were gifts to Mr. Smith from the Empress of China. The observatory’s furnishings include the famed Wishing Chair. The chair, product of the skill of a Chinese carver and quite likely the skill of an early day virtuoso publicity man, incorporates a carved dragon and a phoenix, which when combined, portends marriage. 

Hence the chair came with the sentimental- and sexist- legend that any wishful unmarried woman who sits in it would be married within a year. Some validity to the claim was noted, or at least implied, when Smith’s daughter was wed in the observatory a year following her visit to the building’s opening. 

However, I realized on Saturday that instead of getting married within a year of sitting in the chair, I either am pregnant or get pregnant within a year of sitting in the chair. Next year I am totally standing up for the family photo. No sense taking a risk with these things. 

We're such a cute family, aren't we?  Anyway, I'm not going to write Daniel a mushy message here on my blog because he doesn't read my blog unless I tell him he has to. So I'll save it for the card.  But I am definitely feeling blessed today- despite the vomit. There's nothing greater than being married to your best friend. It's been a busy and sometimes stressful 3 years, but with him by my side, it's all been so very worth it.  

Is anyone out there NOT sick?

Seems like everyone whose blog I read or who updates their Facebook status or who is my friend in real life, well, you're all fighting a bug of some sort.  It seemed like so much fun, so we decided to join you. :)  Ethan started throwing up last night at about 12:30- why does vomiting ALWAYS start in the middle of the night when Mommy and Daddy are soundly sleeping?  I was not surprised, since a bunch of our church friends had been sick with stomach bugs of various sorts, and something is always going around daycare as well.  I've spent the last 12 hours doing laundry and occasionally checking to see if Ethan can keep anything like applesauce or crackers down. The answer to that is no, by the way.

It's been kind of an interesting morning- yesterday I was slow at work, so sent out an email early in the morning and promptly heard back from three people, all with work that needed to be done this week.  None of the tasks were huge, so I said I could balance them all. Well, one quickly turned into something totally out of my scientific range of knowledge, but I thought I could still do part of it. And I was going to work on it today, but then Ethan got sick. And I had to stop myself and realize that my primary job is to be Ethan's mommy, especially when he's feeling sick and needs me.  So I emailed the project manager and gave back all the work and apologized profusely. And immediately felt about 1 million times better. Seems like the older Ethan gets, the harder it's getting to balance work and mommyhood. I know a lot of people that do it well, but I think my obsessive-don't stop until it's 100% done and done well-personality makes it particularly challenging for me to focus on both mommyhood and my job.  

So, here I am, listening to the sounds of the washing machine and dryer running at full speed, hoping for the germs to leave us alone soon, because we have a very, very busy next two weeks planned and cannot have illnesses lingering.  Tomorrow is our 3rd wedding anniversary, and Friday we're heading up to Vancouver to hand Ethan over to his grandparents and spend Saturday night in a hotel in downtown Vancouver. Then we come home Sunday and my parents show up for a 9 day visit on Monday! During which time we're heading down to Portland for 3 days to see my grandmother. So things are too busy to schedule in much more vomiting! Sickness begone! 

Typing with semi-frostbitten fingers

On the days that I am not working as a mommy, I work in a nice high-rise building in downtown Seattle. We've had our offices here for a long time now. I can't remember if it's 4 years or 5 years, but it's a long time. And we like our office. Good location for shopping, food, watching endless condo buildings being built in the city. We do occasionally see naked people in the hotel next door or the apartments next to that, which is a little disturbing, as they are never good-looking people. Oh, and there's the overly tanned, hairy man who sunbathes in a white Speedo on the patio of the apartments next door, and my office unfortunately looks directly out onto that patio. So that's a little disturbing. BUT- overall we love our office.

Except for the horrible habit they have of not turning on the heat on holidays. Like Presidents' Day. Because SO many offices are closed on Presidents' Day (rolling my eyes). When the Canadian consulate was still in the building, they would put up a stink about the heat being turned off on random American holidays that no one actually celebrates, and the heat would get turned back on. But they left. So here we sit, freezing in the office.

I got to work today even though daycare was closed, because Daniel's company actually does celebrate Presidents' Day for some reason. Why this is one of their paid holidays and not something like the day after Thanksgiving or Christmas Eve, I do not know. But it works well today, as he's home with Ethan and I'm trying to get stuff done at work. He's even taking Ethan to his 18-month check-up today. He's never been to one of Ethan's check-ups, so it should be interesting. Oh, and Daniel is totally needle-phobic, so I'm hoping he'll be okay during the shots. Ethan will be fine, so maybe he can comfort Daniel :)

Oh, I forgot to mention- I won another prize! Seriously, I'm going to become the world's biggest advocate of entering bloggy giveaways. In the last year I have won: a flip video camera, a leather notebook, $100 of baked goods (that has been a blessing and a curse), a gift certificate for baby clothes, a CD, a flash drive, a $50 gift certificate for Tiny Prints, and now a really nice Graco SweetPeace Baby Comfort Center! My latest prize is from PBS Supersisters, which is a great blog written by three sisters who have a bunch of kids and always have something interesting to say. Go check them out!

I have to just keep typing constantly for the next 6.5 hours to keep my fingers from freezing. Must stay warm...

24 weeks! And Valentine's Day!

You got a break from my disjointed ramblings yesterday, that was your Valentine's Day gift from me. You're welcome :)  We had a lovely day yesterday- Ethan decided to be the most wonderful child in the world, and slept until 8 AM. On a Saturday! I know!  I actually woke up because the cats had had about enough of me turning over and ignoring them and not getting up and feeding them as I should, given that my purpose is to serve them. So they mounted a full-scale effort to get me up and finally succeeded at 8. And when I went in Ethan's room to see why he was still sleeping, he was sitting up in his crib, just looking around. Not talking, not crying, just hanging out. I have no idea how long he had been up, but how wonderful that he stayed quiet! 

Then we had one of those lovely Saturdays where we just hung out at home and did stuff here and no one showered or got dressed until lunchtime. Those rarely happen at our home.  In the afternoon we met up with Kim, who had volunteered to take some family pictures of us, since she's working on starting her photography business. Kim, I apologize for being the least photogenic family ever.  Ethan, who normally is in a good mood when he sees a camera, was not being cooperative. I just looked lumpy, and Daniel blinked pretty much every time she shot a photo.  I'm hoping she got something good out of the photos she took!

And, as of yesterday I'm 24 weeks pregnant! We tried to take a 24 week photo yesterday, but I didn't even look remotely pregnant in it, so we're going to try again today before church.  I don't know if others felt this way during the pregnancy, but 24 weeks is definitely one of the little "oh good, we made it this far" landmarks in my mind, since a baby born now would have somewhat of a fighting chance. Not a big one, but a lot more than at any of the earlier stages. New Baby was wiggling and kicking like crazy last night, and Daniel finally got to feel her kick, which was nice. Sometimes I worry that he thinks I'm making up this whole pregnancy thing for sympathy. 

Now I'm just waiting for the rest of the family to wake up, and we're off to work in the church nursery (2 more times left, then we're done until May).  Last week was insane, with tons of kids and the guest speaker going 15 minutes over time, so hopefully this week will be better.  I'm glad we're able to be a blessing to other parents and serve in this way, since we are not involved in a whole lot of ministries at church right now, but it's definitely a tiring ministry! And it'll be good to get back into church in March and be able to be a part of the worship again and hear the sermons in the service, not just over the computer later in the week. I miss that! 

Sitting at my nice, quiet, organized desk

I'm in the office this morning. Sitting at my nice, quiet desk in my nice, quiet office. The quiet of our office used to bug me, but now I totally love it. *Sigh of happiness*.

Had an OB appointment this morning. New Baby cooperated and the OB had no trouble hearing her heartbeat. She likes to hang out at my back, so I don't feel her moving all that often, and it's always reassuring to hear her little heartbeat. For once it was an easy appointment- my BP was not high, and actually came in on the low side, but that's easier to fix than high. I was not happy with the number on the scale during my weigh-in, but that's pretty much going to be a given for the next, oh, 5 years or so. Hopefully I'll get more of that magic breastfeeding weight loss this time. It so did not happen for me with Ethan.

Yesterday was insane, but fun. I met up with Lizzie and Maggie and their kids in the morning. Maggie has a boy a little older than Ethan, but they did not really seem impressed with each other's existence. There were lots of toys to play with, so I'm not surprised. It was nice to meet Maggie finally, since I've been reading her blog for a while now. It's always fun to meet people in real life. I decided that I like her, despite the fact that she's down to her pre-baby weight already, just 5 months after having her baby, and I think I weighed the same at that point as I did 7 months pregnant. But she shall be forgiven. :) I'm going to need her to share her willpower secrets when I'm back on the whole weight loss thing this summer.

Both Lizzie and Maggie have adorable little girls, which made me want to speed up the calendar even more, and have it be June already so that New Baby will be here! And wearing all the adorable outfits she already owns. I have decided to focus on that, rather than, "oh my goodness, I cant even handle the one I've got, what am I going to do with two of them"? Cute pink outfits are so much better to think about.

Speaking of cute clothes, I'm feeling very betrayed this morning. I have a pair of utterly adorable red flats, which I am wearing today as part of my cute day-before-Valentine's Day outfit. Daniel dropped me off at the doctor on his way to work, and then I walked down the giant hill and over to my office, and by the time I got here, both of my heels were bleeding and I was limping. Cute shoes should not cause pain! I told Daniel that when we skyped after I got in to my office and he said "well, that means you need new shoes." How perfect is he?

A condoful of grouchy people

Ethan woke up on the wrong side of the crib this morning.  The screaming started at 6:45, and did not start out as a soft cry, like most mornings, but as a "oh my goodness the world is ENDING!" cry. And escalated from there. Fortunately he did cry at 6:45, because I set the alarm for 7, forgetting that today is my day with the car, which means Daniel has to be at the bus stop at 7:15.  But he made it and the car is all mine. Well, mine and the grouchy kid's.  Mr. Grouchy has spent the last two hours crying dramatically about things, while I keep saying things like "just tell me what you want. Learn to talk already!"  And putting him back in his crib in the hopes that he'll nap and be less cranky. I can hear him playing, so it's not working.

Last night it was my grouchy night (I know, you're wondering when it is not my turn).  By 6 PM I was wiped out completely, and feeling very pregnant and achy and sick and all those things.  And Daniel's still trying to catch up from his two days of being out last week, so he didn't even leave work until 6:30 and got home at 7:30 (we have GOT to move!).   I had put Ethan to bed and then gotten him back up when I realized that just because Mommy felt bad didn't mean Ethan was tired, so he was hanging out in the kitchen hiding the lids when Daniel finally came home.  At which point Daniel was handed the toddler and I retired to the couch where I spent the next hour, before going to lie on the bed and be miserable in there. I was so tired and achy that I only got up to check my email once! That's huge, you have no idea,

Anyway, Daniel came to bed around 10, and I was still achy and grouchy and miserable and all that.  At which point he made a mistake, a bad one for someone whose wife is on her second pregnancy of 2 years and who really should know better! He laid down next to me, and put his head on MY pillow and draped his arm across me.  I restrained myself from hitting him, and instead yelled "GET OFF MY PILLOW!!" 

Okay, in case you're confused here, here's some more background info. I do not like to be touched when I am not feeling well. Never have, never will. And I do not like people on my side of the bed, especially on my pillow! I need that little bit of personal space at the end of the day after having the toddler and the cats climbing on me and New Baby kicking me from the inside. Just one foot of space for my head and my face. And Daniel knows both of these things, and broke both rules simultaneously after being aware that I was NOT feeling well all evening. 

Fortunately for him, he moved quickly back to his side of the bed and offered to rub my back, which was acceptable. So I let him live. :)  He really is a good husband, and these type of bad things are about as bad as his behaviors get, so I shouldn't complain. But really, what was he thinking! 

Things I love today

1. My pretty new blog header!  Everyone, admire, please!

2.  Sunshine! It's been snowing here for a few days and kind of dreary, so it's really nice to see the sun. I'm just sitting where I can't see the dust on my shelves.

3. Working at home in my quiet condo. I'm usually running around like a lunatic when I'm home, so I love the days when I work at home and have an excuse to sit quietly and enjoy the sunshine.

4. Ethan's new cool mist humidifier that I got on clearance at Bed Bath and Beyond. I have it sitting next to me and running right now, and my nose is actually feeling better. This dry air has been kicking my butt.  

5.  My sweet husband.  I love him in general, but get reminded of how good and patient he is sometimes. Like last night, when he came home from work and was talking about his one female coworker and her pregnancy issues. She's a week ahead of me, so has pretty much the same complaints that I do right now, and Daniel is so nice and asks her about it, so he ends up hearing about pregnancy stuff pretty much all the time. He's genuinely interested, but I imagine it gets old when you're around it 23 hours out of the day.

6.  My job.  I wrote yesterday about my upcoming maternity leave and having sent an email to work to let them know my plans.  Believe you me, I have had enough conversations and read enough blogs lately to know how incredibly blessed I am to have such a flexible job with a company that likes me a lot. And to have the financial freedom for us to (barely) be able to have two kids on Daniel's salary so I can take a long chunk of time off.  My job has been a blessing in my life (most of the time) for the past 5 1/2 years now, and I am aware of just how great it is.  

7. Empty laundry baskets. It happens so rarely, I need to enjoy the 32 minutes or so that they will stay empty!  

8.  A fairly empty social calendar for this weekend.  We're doing a photo shoot with Kim from Tacheny Adventure on Saturday afternoon, but that'll be a fun activity.  Other than that and church on Sunday, we have nothing planned. How strange and wonderful! It's our last free weekend until mid-March sometime, so we plan to enjoy it.  I think Valentine's Day is going to be low-key this year, probably just dinner in. Hopefully we'll manage to stay awake past 8 PM. I'm not counting on it though. :)

Hope you're all having a great day today too! 

Seattle people

Seriously, how much do you love the Pemco Insurance ads? I totally relate to the blue tarp camper one, as I was dragged on camping trips in the rain for most of my childhood. I am sure we camped in the sunshine at some point in time, but I have no recollection of it. 

Have you heard the "first snowfall freakout lady" one?  Cracked me up when I heard it today, since it's snowing again. Although there is definitely less freaking out going on around here since the great December snow.  I love the part about "you don't understand, I live on a hill!" SO true. 

If you haven't heard/seen the ads, click here on the Pemco site and go to the view ads button at the bottom of the page. 

Taking a step out on faith

Okay, before I get to the main point of this post, I want to say that I am totally amused by myself these days. I've been writing these long, venty posts about pregnancy and the discomforts that go along with it, and all the emotional ups and downs I'm going through. Then, I go and read the posts from the same point in my last pregnancy, and they are virtually identical! I'm scared to read ahead though...

Anyway, this morning I decided that it was time to finally be a big girl and send an email I've been needing to write. The one to daycare, telling them that we're having another baby and that Ethan will only be in daycare through the end of April. It was so hard to write! Especially since Ethan loves daycare and they are so wonderful there. And it took so freaking long to get him a spot there, so it was hard to give up.

But I KNOW this is the right thing to do.  Even if there was not another baby on the way, Ethan's getting to an age where he seems to need to be around me more. And I'm getting to a point where I spend more time questioning the point of my job (which I still generally like) and whether my work is worth leaving my kid behind 3 days out of the week. I'm still all for working moms, but in this case, the staying home side was starting to outweigh the work side.  As I told Daniel the other week on a Friday- I had had a really good week at work, one of those perfect weeks where I was busy during the day, but nothing stressful that carried over into the evenings or worried me too much. And even though it had been a great week at work- I still was ready to not be doing it anymore. Weeks like that make me even more sure that this is the right decision.

So I emailed work and told them my last day before leave would be April 29, and then I would like to take unpaid leave for the rest of 2009 and make a decision then about coming back, depending on if we manage to move and what the childcare situation is like where we end up.  And I emailed daycare and gave them the news too. It made me feel a little ill. It's hard to face the idea of giving up a job, even temporarily in this economy, but I believe this is what God wants our family to do, and He'll help us adapt!

**Edited to add this PS

Okay, so I was being all happy and positive about this and sure that this is what we should do. Then I gave Ethan lunch, and he ate well, but ended up wearing a lot of the food, so went straight to the bath.  Where he played for a little while. Then pooped in the tub. A lot.  Do you know how much effort it took to NOT email work and daycare and say "never mind!"  :)  

Me again

I've been working now for about 4 hours, and I swear, my entire morning has gone like this: 1) work one minute. 2) think about cake for 2 minutes. 3) contemplate getting up to get cake for 2 minutes. 4) realize I don't feel like waddling downstairs for 30 seconds. Repeat.

Oh, I totally forgot to tell you the most annoying part of the bad haircut yesterday. It didn't really sink in until later in the evening, because I was so focused on mentally willing the guy to just cut my hair already so we could get Ethan home for a nap! Anyway, Daniel was there too and he got his haircut first, and the guy knew I was there with my husband and son. He asked the usual baby questions and I mentioned that I am 5 months pregnant with #2 and we chatted about that. (The man was your stereotypical male hairdresser, if you get my drift). And then he asked me if I worked, and I said that I did, but I would probably not be working after the new baby arrived.

Then the guy said "oh, that's going to be so much easier than working. I mean, I'd love to just sit around all day and play with kids and not have to actually work. I'm surprised you're still working now, wouldn't you rather be home playing?" He's lucky I was distracted, or else I would not have been able to be responsible for my pregnancy hormones. Because, I'm sorry, my days at work are about 1.5 billion times easier than dealing with a toddler who has just learned to say
"no", and who spends all his time looking over his shoulder to make sure I notice that he's once again in the drawer he's not supposed to play in, before he cackles madly and dashes off (not very quickly) to torture the cats or try to eat cat litter or something like that.

I know there are lots of people out there who still think being a stay-at-home mom is easy, but I'd never run into one before. I vote we go hunt him down and let him babysit our kids for a few hours...

How?

How am I supposed to keep my weight gain to 15 pounds for the entire pregnancy if I still have almost 4 months left to go, and all I can seem to think about is food? Particularly cake! I was on the computer last night, and a picture popped up from my Ukraine reunion in October 2007, and it was a picture of our food, with piles of Ukrainian cakes in the corner.

nd then my coworker was talking about the new Starbucks cupcakes this morning, and I almost started drooling on my desk. She made some weird comment like "the cupcake was good, but had too much frosting." I don't understand what she even means by such a statement, since we all know there is no such thing. I'm the type of person who likes to eat the "yucky" food on my plate first, so always eat the cake and then save the big pile of frosting for last. Fortunately for me, I'm married to a person who also doesn't really like frosting (yes, both my coworker and my husband are thin, and no, I'm not going to think about that), so I usually get to eat at least half of his frosting too.

Finding it VERY hard to concentrate now, especially since I'm hungry again, and I know that the Starbucks cupcakes are just an elevator ride away. Whimper.

I've reached THAT stage of pregnancy

You know the stage that I'm talking about, right? The stage where I'm fairly certain I have been pregnant forever and will continue to be pregnant until the END OF TIME.  All the while still being at the stage where I don't look pregnant, just lumpy.  Although my baby bump and my chubbiness are getting close to merging, so hopefully I'll look less pathetic soon.  Today I had to wear a skirt to work in the church nursery, which I know people probably thought was weird, but my regular pants are too small, and tend to drift south when I wear them with the belly band (not a great idea when chasing multitudes of small children) and my maternity pants are too big.  So skirts it is, for a while! Thankfully I got some maternity tights yesterday, so can keep my legs warm.

Daniel made it home safely last night, right on time.  Ethan was so happy to see him this morning. He just had the hugest smile on his face as he walked to his daddy.  I never get tired of seeing the two of them together. They're the sweetest!  Daniel, unfortunately, didn't get much of a break today, as we had nursery duty this morning, and a list of things that have been put off around the condo for weeks and had to be done today.  He's relaxing now though, while watching some DVD about China and the Three Rivers Gorge Dam. I got the DVD from the library and started watching it, but it was too depressing for me and my pregnancy hormones.

So I left the DVD and decided to sort through my underwear drawer instead.  Which wasn't at all depressing, really :)  It's kind of funny to see all my fancy, skinny person underwear that I bought just three years ago, when I was weeks away from my wedding. Little did I know that all that pretty underwear would result in me being on my second pregnancy by the time of our third anniversary! Let that be a warning to you all- do not buy pretty underwear! 

Oh, and I got my haircut today. It was a terrible haircut- and I thought I would cry when I looked in the mirror, but after I washed it and styled it, it was improved. I have full bangs now, which I agreed to just to get the stylist to shut up and cut my hair already. Lizzie, you'll have to let me know what you think when I see you later this week.  I of course expect you to lie to me if it looks terrible :) 

I guess we're not newlyweds anymore

Daniel called a couple of times today to update me on how things went. The funeral was good and had a good turnout. Daniel and his brother and cousins were good pallbearers and did not drop the coffin.  He's been enjoying spending time with family and catching up on what's going on with everyone, particularly with the new babies in the family. I guess Ethan's second cousin (who is 6 months older than Ethan) has a lot of the same habits as Ethan does right now, so Daniel feels right at home. He said this does get him in trouble, when he picks up Hugo to toss him in the air or play the other games he plays with Ethan, and only then remembers that Hugo weighs almost 10 pounds more than Ethan does... 

Anyway, he's coming home tomorrow! Ethan and I have done fine these past few days, but we've missed him! I was amused though, when we were making plans for the logistics of tomorrow, and Daniel said he'd call me before he left for the airport. I did some quick mental calculations and realized that would mean that he would call at 5:30 my time, and tomorrow is Saturday, one of the few days that I don't have to get up at 5:30.  I decided that I perhaps don't love him QUITE that much anymore, and it would be fine if he waited to call me when he was on his first layover back in the States.  

I ate caramel corn for dinner tonight.  Yeah, doing great on that healthy eating thing. I think I'll eat a tomato later to help balance things out. 

Tired

It's 6:10 AM. I'm supposed to be working, so I can get an hour or so in before Ethan wakes up and needs to start his morning routine. But my work papers are about 8 feet away from where I sat down when I came out to the living room, so that's not happening so far. 

I also should be feeding the kitty sharks. I call them kitty sharks because they circle me endlessly, giving me pointed looks and eyeing my toes.  Poor things. They thought they needed treats when I got up at 2 to use the restroom and check on Ethan. Pretty much if I'm out of bed, they are sure they deserve treats.

And I definitely should be up making my lunch while waiting for the magic pod coffee maker to make my half-caf coffee. Again, that's several feet away from where I'm sitting, so hasn't happened yet.

Ethan and I had a good day yesterday. Tiring, but good. Went to bible study in the morning, which was lovely. The nursery people commented when I picked him up "he never stops moving, does he?"  Nope.  NEVER. Not even in his sleep. Seriously.  Judging by the past few days, his sister is going to be exactly the same.  We did have a giant battle over bedtime, which only happens once every few weeks, but always on the days that I'm most tired.  Ethan is not the type to cry it out- if he is upset, he just sits or stands in his crib and screams until something happens. Sometimes that's vomiting, last night it was a bloody nose, generally it's someone giving in and getting him up for 10 minutes or so.  I know this is bad parenting, but it's so much easier to just let him get up for 10 minutes and then have him happily go to sleep then, than to fight it out.  Last night the 10 minute get-up didn't work too well though. And when he was finally going down, Daniel called and wanted to tell him good night, which upset Ethan and started the whole process over again!  

To comfort myself I ate cake last night. I have got to stop buying cake. I'm now up 5 pounds since my last doctor's appointment.  Which was a WEEK ago.  Hopefully it's water weight. I'm going to focus on healthier snacks and drinking more water, which will hopefully help.  Must stop fatness...

Daniel's at the funeral right now.  He made it safely to Toronto yesterday and was doing well when I talked to him last night. They had a houseful of people and were catching up with everything that's going on.  I'm sure today is going to be a tough day for them all though.  So just sitting here praying for him (my excuse for not getting up) and looking forward to him coming home tomorrow night.

Okay, I have to get up and accomplish stuff now. HAVE to.  

Have a good Friday, everyone!

Pretty much clinging to his ankles and begging him not to go

I'm trying to behave myself today and not whine about Daniel leaving me for 73 hours. Because it's not like he wants to fly cross-country, making multiple stops and spending the night sitting up in a middle seat and trying to sleep, all to attend a sad event and be a pallbearer for a man he loved. I need to keep my mouth shut and be supportive and not overly pregnant and emotional until AFTER I drop him off at the airport tonight. I can do it, really.

I can't remember if I've mentioned this before, but when I was a kid, I used to be sure that my parents were going to die any time they were away from me for more than a day or two. To the point of making myself totally ill. You'd never have guessed that I'd grow up and turn into the type of person who travels around the world alone and lives in the former Soviet Union by herself at the age of 23. So if you have a kid like this, don't worry too much. Daniel rarely leaves for extended periods of time, so this hasn't come up too much lately, but it seems like when he does leave, I'm always in a heightened state of stress. Like when he went to China with his family- it was just before our wedding. When he went to Kansas for work on his last business trip- I was 7 months pregnant with Ethan. And we all know how mentally stable I am right now.

So I didn't sleep well last night, fretting a little bit. Not about taking care of Ethan, although I know I'll be tired by Saturday night, but just about missing Daniel and not wanting him to leave. Because he is my best friend and I would rather be with him than anyone else. I love seeing him in the evenings and chatting with him on Skype during the day about what's going on in my life. I like feeling connected to him. And he's going to be far away for the next few days and dealing with a really sad time all by himself.

On a funny note, the entire family (and I mean ENTIRE) is staying at his aunt and uncle's house. So each sub-family gets a room, and Daniel has to share an air mattress with his brother, which will be located on the floor next to his parents' bed. I giggle whenever I think about it. 35 years just got subtracted from his age, right there. Can you imagine, being 41 and 43 years old and having to share a bed and sleep next to your parents? Too funny.

The other thing that I'm spending WAY too much time thinking about right now is when to go on maternity leave and take Ethan out of daycare. I really don't like the thought of having him deal with the loss of daycare and the arrival of the new baby all at once, so we were thinking about me going on leave effective May 1. But then I don't know what I'm going to do with him during my twice weekly non-stress tests that I'll be doing by then. He's a good kid, but I think sitting still for 20 minutes to an hour twice per week might be hoping for a little much from him. And I'm fairly certain that leaving him home alone with the cats is also not an option. Seriously, I thought all these appointments were complicated to schedule last pregnancy, and that was when I just had my schedule and Daniel's to worry about!

People, adulthood is complicated!

Tuesday

We're having very pretty sunshine here in Seattle today, so it's lovely to look out the window and see all the blue sky. I think Ethan and I are going to have to go out for a walk later today. After he wakes up from his nap and the refinance appraisal guy has come and gone.  Which will be later than expected, since the appraiser FORGOT about our appointment today at noon. Oddly, when I got home from a playdate at my friend's house, there was a message on my voicemail from the appraiser, saying that we needed to set up a time for him to come by. Daniel called him back and mentioned that we had an appointment, and that it was for right then, and the guy said he'd hop in his car and come over. I think he owes me about $5000 extra in property value for that! 

Anyway, more updates- my appointment at the perinatologist went well. Ultrasound looked good- fluid levels were fine again, baby is still growing well (which is a concern, given the medications I'm on) and everything is on track.  I have to go back in another month to see them again to see if my meds need to be increased and to make sure baby is still growing. Seriously, I have a doctor's appointment of some sort pretty much every week. Thank goodness for medical insurance.  The ultrasound technician said that the baby is definitely a girl, so I spent the evening going through Ethan's baby clothes and packing those up for Daniel's coworker who is having a boy at the end of May.  I got strangely emotional about that- even though I am totally not a sentimental person!

The only bad news of the appointment was that the perinatologist said we should use my ultrasound from back at 6 weeks, 6 days to date the pregnancy, which moved my due date back to 6/6/09 (it had been at 6/2/09 for a while).  Which is probably for the best, it'll give the little one lots of time to grow before the c-section, but given that I just had a baby less than 18 months ago, I remember how long each and every day can feel during that last month!

Daniel's off to Toronto tomorrow night for the funeral.  He's taking a redeye flight out, with two stops on the way out and then coming back Saturday, with another two stops. I'm praying hard that all of the connections are made and that no complications arise.  Normally we wouldn't do that many connections, but last minute flights are definitely not cheap, and this was the most affordable way to travel.  So, I'm on my own for 72 hours- which I am perfectly capable of doing, but don't want to do, as I am lazy and like having help in the evenings! 

I need cake.  

And it's Monday again

Busy weekend here. Daniel left at 6:30 AM for a men's retreat with our church.  I'm glad he was able to go, as time with his friends and with men from the church has not been a high priority lately for Daniel, thanks to me and Ethan.  He sounded really encouraged by the things they talked about at the retreat. 

The men made it home from the retreat at about noon, and Daniel then hung out at our friend's house and lusted over their brand-new 50 inch TV with all his other guy friends.  I made it up there a few hours later after Ethan's nap, and also sat mesmerized by the big screen picture. It was very nice.  And no fuzziness or weird lines in the picture, which is weird to us. For some reason our limited basic cable completely stinks lately, and most of the channels have lines running through them or make buzzing sounds or jump or have a ghost of the picture that is about to appear on the screen.  Darn you, Comcast! We're hoping it'll be better after the digital transition. Hoping, hoping.

Unfortunately, Daniel's phone rang about 10 minutes after I arrived at the Super Bowl party, with the news that his Toronto uncle had passed away.  I guess his heart began failing yesterday, so the doctor recommended that life support be discontinued. It was a hard thing for the family, but they knew they needed to let him go. Fortunately all the family that really needed to say goodbye had arrived in Toronto already. 

Now we're just waiting to hear when the funeral will be, and we'll book Daniel a ticket to the great frozen north.  His cousin, who is a pastor, has been asked by their aunt to perform the service, which we thought was surprising, but great, as the aunt and uncle were non-practicing Buddhists and had been very uncomfortable with anything related to Christian faith.  Please keep praying for the family, especially for Daniel's aunt. They apparently had a good marriage for many years, so this sudden loss has got to be so difficult for her.  

I'm off to the perinatologist in an hour for another ultrasound and an appointment.  Daniel and I were saying yesterday that if we get any more bad news, we're just going to pack up and run away :)  So hopefully everything will look good in my uterus today!