Currently: Our little family Volume 2

Currently week of Nov 29

Mama is...
Watching Clem play with Cole's Melissa and Doug wooden beads as I sit here and eat my breakfast (I began this post Wednesday morning). In the morning it seems like the cats need constant supervision. If they're not making noises by rolling the toys across the floor, they're chewing the adhesive from the painters tape on Cole's art projects. This means I'm constantly trying to keep his projects stuck to the walls. My only wonder is - why don't they just play with Cole? They'd have so much fun if they just obliged when he throws a ball or gives them a treat? I wish they didn't run for the hills. On the other hand, I can't blame them. If an unpredictable person chased me around the house squealing with glee, I'd probably avoid him too.

Wishing it would be Christmas time already. Why? Because as I have told Cole, so he understands the timeline of our life, the baby comes just a few weeks after that.

Waiting for Cole to grow some more. He's been eating like the Cookie Monster and he's been out of sorts still when I get home from work. But Dada and I are working through it with Cole and trying our best to keep our patience. We're also feeding him well. We keep telling him that the way we get bigger (because he's always asking us how we got so big) is by eating ALL of our dinner.

Wondering if my nesting instincts are normal for this time in my pregnancy or if I'm going to give birth too early. I guess that could be classified as a worry as well.

Worrying about lots of things. But I don't want to sound like a broken record and I don't want to complain. So I'll just say that I'm anxious about my complicated pregnancy and all that it entails. I'm also thinking about the aftermath - being a mother of 2. Perhaps that's the biggest unknown of all. How will we all handle having a fourth person in our family?

Dada is...
Waiting for it to snow.
Watching the world go by, day by day.
Wishing I had a money tree.
Worrying about not getting enough work done for my business.
Wondering when it's going to snow?

Cole is...
Waiting for it to snow. Did you see the snowsport wall Keith built in our garage? Total awesomeness.

Watching "bideos" on Mama's phone from the past 6 months or so. He still squeals at a video of him dancing with Kale in June or running through a hanging towel with Juni in August. I would venture to say those two camping trips rocked his world.

Wishing Mama could also be there with him during his days with Dada. For instance, on Wednesday nights he usually asks me if I'm going to story time with him. And then I have to remind him I have to work and then we have a long conversation about why I work and why others we know work. I'll gently remind him that we spend our nights together and have so much fun and that will sometimes cheer him up.

Worrying about nothing I hope!

Wondering why the baby isn't here already. Wondering where teddy bear is. Only to find teddy in the bassinet where he is warm and swaddled.

32 weeks down.

This week marks the 32nd week of my pregnancy. My due date of Jan. 25 looms over the horizon. In 8 weeks or so I will be the mother of 2. I will have a daughter. Those two facts alone are enough to knock the breath out of me.

Cole can't wait to hold his baby sister. In the same breath that he's asking me why my belly keeps getting bigger he's also asking me if he can hold the baby and give her a kiss. When I explain that she's growing inside my belly he gives that a kiss instead, content to wait for now. I joke with my colleagues, who have multiple children, that he really has no idea what he's in for. But, really, neither do I.

I'm still getting regular contractions. They are only made worse if I don't take my medicine every 4 hours or if I become dehydrated. The only time I don't take my medicine is at night while sleeping. If I wake up in the early morning with a contraction (which I often do) I take it and try my hardest to go back to sleep (which I often don't.)

I drink as much water as I can during the day but since we only use a water cooler at work we sometimes run out of water and have to wait a while for a delivery. Everyone warns me NOT to drink the water out of the fountains since IBM is right down the road and God knows what they've dumped into the ground over the years. The water is deemed okay by an independent inspector but no one drinks it. The fountains are dry and rusted and even the substitute teachers have warned me not to drink it. If you look close enough you'll find water coolers hidden in many of the schools department and administrative offices.

Other than contractions I have normal pregnancy symptoms- fatigue, shortness of breath and sometimes the worst indigestion where I feel like I'm burping up my meal for hours on end.

I've talked to the office manager at my Ob practice and told her my concerns that I mentioned here in my last "currently" post. She said she was going to share my concerns during a meeting today and get back to me, but I never heard from her. I'll probably follow up tomorrow.

I still need to hire a doula, and I wish I could figure out why I waited until now to start my search.

The good news is that we found a replacement for me at work while I'm gone and Keith and I are really leaning towards me taking the rest of the school year off, which has been another source of stress for me. I want to do that more than anything, but I know it's going to mean we will be struggling financially until I return to work in September. And it probably means one of us borrows from our retirement so we can make our mortgage payments. That scares Dada and I a lot, but this is a chance for me to be home full time for 8 months with our daughter and that's a once in a lifetime opportunity I just don't want to pass up this time around. I made the mistake once (of not doing what my heart desired), and I don't want to repeat it.

Baby Girl is doing well. She moves around a lot and continues to spend her days dancing on my cervix and punching my arm when I lean on my belly. She hiccups quite often and seems to be on the small side, according to the tech during my most recent ultrasound to check on the status of my cervix. I'm fine with this for obvious reasons. I'd rather not have to push out a baby bigger than Cole was when he was born (7 pounds 3 ounces).

Below is my 32 week bump. Looks humongous to me when I look down at it, but this picture shows me how "small" I really do "carry" my babies. Next pic is the bassinet we received as a hand me down. I'm so in love with it I had to get it in here as soon as possible. Cole loves it too (as do the cats) and whenever he sees something in it or on it he promptly throws it off and says "That doesn't belong here. This bassinet is for the baby." Already defending his little sister. What a great big brother he's going to be.

Rewind: Thanksgiving

This will be backdated in November, but it was not originally published until January for pregnancy and work related reasons.

For Thanksgiving this year we decided to spend a few days with my side of the family. It has been a while since we had seen my father and my stepmother, and this is the first holiday we spent without my grandmother. I felt I needed to be with them. And I'm glad we went because Cole is still talking about it.

For only spending two days there we certainly did a lot. We got together with friends for dinner the first night. We had missed their daughter's first birthday party because Keith was sick, so it was great to see them and share a delicious Greek meal with them. The last time we got together was in October when Dada took the most beautiful portraits of the birthday girl. At dinner, they got to see a glimpse into what life might be like in another year and a half (crazy boy begging for pasta until the very minute it arrives!) and we got to see their very tranquil daughter taking it all in (so maybe their life won't be EXACTLY like ours, but you get the drift).

After dinner we headed back to my father's house and settled in for the night. Although Cole was really not too keen on sleeping in this strange bed in Papa Joe's house, he eventually passed out. So did we.

The next morning we went to Starbucks for some coffee and tea since I forgot to tell my father to get me black tea. Then we jetted over to this awesome park nearby that had three or four different age level playgrounds. Cole had a blast jumping in a pile of leaves and throwing leaves at other kids who came over to join the fun. We ended up napping (thanks to another car ride) during most of Thanksgiving supper, but it was worth it to cuddle up to Cole, who rarely likes to sleep next to me in a bed anymore (he will sleep in a rocking chair of course). The second night was a bit more challenging, but we gave Cole an awesome shower and he was a happy boy, loving the warm water on his head and back. He did not like the idea at all of sleeping away from home the second night and cried for an hour before passing out. It was kind of miserable, but when you have a sleep fighting child, you come to get used to it.

Sunset overlooking Manhattan

Cole's first time at a real drum set

The drums are almost as big as me? No big deal!

Pasta for breakfast? No problem!

The vibrating gobbling turkey that we did not bring home.

Wherein Cole redistributes the playground leaves

Too much fun

\

Currently - Our little family

Dada is...
Hoping that everyone has a great Thanksgiving holiday and is able to spend quality time with their families.

Enjoying the time I get to spend with my son and watching him grow.

Inspired by...(see above)

Listening to him laughing, screaming and saying the darndest things.

Craving a mini vacation, maybe somewhere tropical. A simple date night will probably suffice.

Mama is...
Hoping for some answers next time I see my Ob /Gyn. For the past 8 weeks it seems like none of the doctors or midwives in the practice are on the same page. They act surprised when I fill them in on something ANOTHER DOCTOR from their practice did or said. It seems ridiculous to me that this is occurring. Either they are not keeping updated information in their computers, not inputting the information from my visits or they are coming into the exam room completely unprepared by not looking at my chart beforehand. I can't tell you how frustrating it is. It feels like it's bordering on incompetence and part of me just wants to switch back to the other practice.

Enjoying the fact that I have a nice long weekend ahead of me to spend with family.

Inspired by other moms, The Toddler Busy Book, and Teach Me to Do It Myself to come up with new ideas for purposeful play and fun arts and crafts with Cole. I especially love art using natural objects. Leaves, pinecones, and a pumpkin are what Cole has used so far.

Listening to the conversation between Cole and dada as Cole sits on the bathroom toilet. Mostly though it's Dada commenting on Cole's poop. "That's not a poop that's an appetizer."

Craving sugary cereal. This is my real weakness. I would take a bowl of fruit loops over a piece of cake any day. I'm trying though to stick with cereals that are not artificially colored. I know from recent personal experience how this can affect one's colon.

Cole is...
hoping... for a motorcycle, kitchen tongs of his own, Kiwi would just stop and let him pet her, Clem would play with the cat toys he found, he can hold a real baby real soon.

enjoying the weekends where he can wake up and Mama is there to give him his morning kiss.

inspired by others playing music. When he watched my father play a cover of a Stone Temple Pilots song, he said "I want a musical instrument!" Ditto for when he watched Aunt Stephanie play her acoustic.

listening to us "now." He's always listening to us "now" after we've taken away a toy he's been throwing on the floor or banging on the table or after we've declared he won't be getting the much desired ice pop because he's been ramming his ride-on fire engine into our feet. That's when he declares that he's listening. It's very cute when he says it, but it's not always as cute when he's not actually doing the listening.

craving the same stupid sugary cereal I am, plus his Halloween treats, icing on cupcakes and cookies, raspberries, bananas and hard boiled eggs.

Taken at Nassau County Park on Thanksgiving Day.

Currently

Mama is...
Reading Emily Giffin on audio (thank you fellow bloggers for gushing over her and consequently inspiring me to read her). Reading Where We Belong and loving it although there's a part of me that is really hoping it will turn into a romance very soon (which I think it will). I'm also about to read a boat load of literary analysis paragraphs and am really looking forward to them, especially considering my students are still struggling with the whole concept of "analysis."

Wishing I could have the energy to make my lunch at night so I don't have to scramble around the kitchen every morning trying to get it together as fast as possible.

Cooking nothing but lunches (in the a.m.). Dada makes the meals around here, except on Friday nights when Cole and I make pizza.

Thankful for next week's 2-day work week and thankful that I get this time off as opposed to having to dip into my own days off to be with my family.

Loving my new electric toothbrush but not loving the splatters it creates all over the bathroom mirror. Dada goes to the dentist for the first time in 15 years and suddenly he's got floss (something I've never seen him use) and a new electric toothbrush ordered from Amazon. Thankfully he was nice enough to share the toothbrush (came with two brushes) with me, so that I can reap the benefits too. Bad news? I still end up with a cavity even though I go to my dentist as often as I go to the Ob!! I sincerely hope that both our children end up inheriting his hard teeth. Because mine are way too soft and vulnerable to cavities.

Cole is...

Reading so many books, I can't pinpoint one he likes over any others. The other night we read The Lorax. Last night we read How Do Dinosaurs Play with Their Friends? I let him do the picking and if he stays interested, I know it's a book he likes.

Wishing for snow. Snowboarding and skiing season is right around the corner. You bet your bottom dollar he and Dada already have season passes to Belleayre- purchased way in advance this summer.

Cooking up ways to get Kiwi to come out from her hiding spot in the closet. Lately, he's been using a flashlight, but that just makes her cower more. He finally has realized the reason why she runs from him, "Because she's 'cared of me."

Thankful for all of his toys. I love when he goes into his toy/play room (which was and sometimes is our living room) and says, "Look at all these tuoys (that's how he pronounces it)."

Loving his new electric Spongebob toothbrush. I usually have to pry it from his mouth to show him that he actually needs to move it AROUND his mouth if he wants to get any brushing done.

Family and Work: Finding a Balance

Some weekends I get by okay. I do a little work here and there and no guilt is felt. No tears are shed (by either Cole or Mama). But other weekends are tougher. I feel incredibly guilty for doing too much work (what Cole now refers to as homework) and not enough quality time with Cole. And then if I don't do that work, I feel guilty and stressed on Monday morning scrambling together lessons for the rest of the week, trying to catch up on grading. It's a vicious cycle, and one I feel I am constantly caught up in - with no stopping it, no solution to the problem.

The problem is that I feel as though I am not good enough at anything I do - not a good enough mother, wife, teacher. There's always something else I could or should be doing.  Sometimes I am not efficient with my time. Yet, sometimes no matter how efficient I am, I still don't complete half of what I need to get done. Sometimes at work there's something in my way - a broken printer in our department office, interviews for my leave replacement that - that take too much time. Sometimes there's nothing in my way but the pile of things that needs to get done - gotta grade the quizzes, gotta check in the homework, gotta look at the illustrations I assigned, gotta plan Lit Lab, gotta re-plan honors, gotta make 20 extra copies of something.

And then at home the list from work continues and I'm all - I'm going to get this stuff done this weekend. But I don't, because grading takes so much time it's ridiculous. So much time that I have little left for planning and then I'm screwed again on Monday. Then when I'm not doing work work, I'm trying to help with the housework, watching/playing with Cole, chasing him around, trying to be a good enough mother so he doesn't think back to his childhood and say to himself - "My Mama - she was always doing homework." I never want my kid or my husband to think that my work is more important than them. Because while it may be on my mind a lot- they always come first in my heart.
I grew up thinking that I was never good enough that my dad had no time for me - that I was the reason he had to work so much - he had to keep that roof over our heads by working at his part-time job at home. It wasn't his fault I felt this way, I just had a fragile self esteem to begin with, always wondering why my mother didn't want me. So when he had little time for me, it stung and stuck with me. I don't want to be a workaholic, but my job is not a job that I can simply not bring home with me. One 42 minute period a day is not enough to plan lessons for three totally different classes and get all of their grades done. Teachers always stay after or bring their work home.  If half the people in this world understood that teaching is not as simple and easy as they think it is, they might have a little bit more respect for the profession and for teachers in general.

What compounds the issue is this: I come home from working all day and trying to get out of the office at a reasonable time and sometimes Cole is miserable. He's having a fit about something, or he's directing his anger at me - because I haven't been around all day and 3-4 p.m. is the first time he sees me ALL day. Because I work so early and so far away, we do not have the luxury of seeing each other in the morning. And I think he resents that and takes it out on me when I get home, which sends me into a guilty spiral, wanting to cry because I'm filled with such self pity. Woe is me. Last weekend, after having my own breakdown, I realized that I just gotta move on. I just gotta keep doing what I'm doing and I can't feel guilty over it. I'll just waste the precious time I do have with him on tears and guilty thoughts. And I know that's not what he wants. He wants a happy, playful, fun Mama who can laugh heartily, dance like a maniac and chase him around the house merrily.

Lessons for the Big brother-to-be

Last night Cole got some lessons in burping from Dada.

I think Cole is going to be a great big brother.

Don't you?

(The sequence of the pictures is actually backwards but you get the drift.)

A family of pickles

Both Dada and I noticed something interesting about our family this week. The entire top shelf of our refrigerator is occupied by pickled somethings. We are a family of pickle heads.

We have jars of: piccalillis, two different brands of bread and butter pickles, cornichons, giardeniera, pickled banana peppers, pickled jalepenos and something called "Super Spicy Kimchi." I LOVE pickled cucumbers. I am into all different types of pickling - but bread and butter and half sours are my faves.

Keith is into branching out and trying other pickled things. He's the one who bought the "Super Spicy Kimchi" with a nice little WARNING! plastered across the front of the label. The funniest part about him trying it for the first time was when he said, "Woooah! I didn't think it'd be that spicy!" to which I completely lost my mind in a fit of laughter.

This summer we somehow got Cole to start liking pickles. Either that or he was always meant to like them, but he just didn't have the right taste buds set up until this summer.  Every time we eat somewhere now and one of us has a pickle on our plate, we must share. In fact, this weekend, we got a yummy bite to eat at Circle W in Palenville and the only thing Cole ate in its entirety was my beloved pickle. When we eat lunch at home, sharing in our love for pickles is a given. There's always a pickled something on our plates, and it's always the first thing we eat.

That is why we are so excited about this weekend's Pickle Fest right here in our very own festival crazed town.

As some of the festivals in this town, this one has just taken off and seems to get bigger and bigger every year. This of course means parking nightmares and lots of pushing through crowds. Last year we decided we didn't want to deal with the hassle, especially since Cole still hadn't taken a liking to pickles yet. But this year, we know he'll be open to trying new things, so we're stoked.

Wordless Wednesday: Always in motion

Cole is always moving. From the moment he wakes up until the moment he finally closes his eyes at night. He's been on the go since he was in the womb --gearing up his leg muscles for his active life. Now at nearly two and a half, he lives life perpetually in motion: walking, riding his bike, balancing on neighborhood rocks or boards in the woods, running around the house naked. And all the while he's moving, he's constantly talking. Constantly connecting. Constantly thinking. I love just sometimes watching him move his legs, talk in his sweet and gentle toddler voice, and look up at me expectantly for a response to some random question that just popped into his mind.

Below are some iPhone pics from the past month of Cole in some kind of motion.

You'll see from one of the pics, even when he's sitting he's moving. And that particular picture of him is my favorite. Cole had brought home a baby doll from his day care. That very night I showed him how to swaddle the little girl. His first idea was to take the swaddled baby and rock her in his rocking chair while I played Twinkle Twinkle on my iPhone. As he rocked her he also moved his head to the music, holding her tight all the while.

Paying it forward: Why I Believe

Why I believe in paying it forward:

Exhibit A:
Back in August, I find the cutest silver heart ring on a picnic bench at the Rosendale Rec Center. It fits me perfectly. Dada helps me realize that someone must have forgotten it there and could come back for it. I leave it where I found it so that the ring owner will know right where to find it. That night on our way to a dinner for two, Dada and I find a Thomas the Train table (made by Imaginarium), including tracks, trains and accessories on the side of the road in New Paltz FOR FREE! The people came out to tell us that yes it was FREE and we thanked them profusely before stuffing the entire table (broken but later fixed by Dada a.k.a. Jack of All Trades) into our CRV and driving happily away (well I was happy, but Dada was mumbling something about not wanting to fix the stupid table that he didn't want to take in the first place).  Earlier that day I had been seriously considering spending too much money on Thomas the Train tracks and trains because Cole loved the table at Barnes and Noble so much. I don't even know where I would've put it all. Thankfully, we now have the table as a permanent fixture in our insulated and renovated garage where Cole plays with it whenever it's raining outside.

I will never forget our good fortune.

Exhibit B:
Last month, we go through bins and bins baby clothes, keep some for Baby Girl, and give the really boyish clothes (two garbage bags full) to our friend Emma, whose son is about 8 months old. Then last week in a seemingly unrelated event, I get a Facebook message from my friend who is done having children. She has a ton of baby gear she wants to give away. Most of it is stuff we will need for Baby Girl. We went today to pick it all up. We couldn't be happier with our new baby stuff! So many things we can cross off our list of things we thought we were going to have to buy - all thanks to her generosity.

Exhibit C:
I pay $3 too much for a used doctor kit for Cole. I figure the seller needs it more than me. Cole and I are out for a Strider ride later that day and my neighbor stops us to give us the cutest little fake tool belt her son once wore in a Halloween costume. Tools and everything.

I'm sure there are so many more examples from our lives that are a result (direct or indirect) of paying it forward. You get the idea though. Being kind and generous to others usually means you will eventually reap the benefits in so many ways. It's one of the things I try to teach Cole. I let him know that many of the things he owns - clothes and toys- were once owned by someone else who gave him their things. So it's okay to give away his things. Of course the latter concept is the hardest for a two-year-old to accept, especially with the "Mine" mentality he is in lately. He will barely even share anything with his own parents, let alone someone he doesn't know. However, as he gets older he's slowly but surely coming to terms with it.

Playing with trains requires a lot of concentration.

Once we get closer to my due date, I will post some pictures of our bedroom, which very soon will include the new pre-owned beautiful bassinet we now have.

Currently

Mama is...

anticipating lots of things - namely the contractions I seem to remember that hit me really hard during the middle of my time on bed rest. They were painful - never labor inducing - but sleep preventing because they hurt me so much. I remember having to take hot baths, hot showers, do weird yoga moves - anything to make the pain stop. I would be up half the night with these contractions and would sleep the morning away. Now I don't have that luxury because I'm not on bed rest. But I am already anticipating it so if it does strike me down and I can't function, it's one of those things that will probably put me over the edge - of bed rest.

ignoring the little voice inside my head that says that even though I went to my due date and beyond with Cole, anything is possible with this pregnancy, especially since I'm treating the contractions differently. Okay, so I'm not really ignoring it. I am hearing it. I think what I need to do is take it easy more on the weekends. We overdid it a bit today and I found myself feeling very drained and with lots of Braxton Hicks contractions.

needing the Thanksgiving vacation that is coming up. We have a day off tomorrow, but grades are due 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, so who are we kidding with this so-called day off.

thinking about my grandmother, my unborn baby, my family spread out in so many parts of the East Coast, wishing for that time we had back in August when we were all together. It was the first time in many years that my entire extended family was together. All of my cousins and my aunt and two uncles under one roof. We used to spend every holiday together growing up. It was never something I longed for because it was always expected. Then we grew up and life changed as it always does.

Cole is...

anticipating the snow. It snowed here earlier this week, but it was such a tease and melted by the next night. He wants to snowboard, ski and "ride the yift."

ignoring our directions in every way, shape, or form unless it includes the word ice pop, bike ride, or television show. I'm pretty sure I wrote about this same topic during the summer, so things haven't changed much in that department.

needing to pet the cats. It's like a mission in his life - he must pet the cats (mostly Kiwi, because she's the only one fool enough to stay within his reach) come hell or high-water every single day.

thinking about camping, the truck I didn't buy him three months ago, our campsite, Kale's campsite, the trailer, the tent, roasting marshmallows, going in the pool, our neighbor's cat, his lonely Strider bike, the list goes on and on. But you get the idea, right? He may be anticipating winter, but he still misses summer.

3 Random Facts you Did Not Know

Clem
1. She drinks water from our water glasses when we are not in the room. We can always tell because there is always a puddle of water around the glass. I can't tell you how many books, papers, and phones have been ruined or almost ruined because of this annoying habit.

2. Every weekend morning she must jump from my side of the bed to the window where she makes a huge ruckus getting in between the double cell blinds and the window. Her body also forces the blinds to poke out and light to shine through, thereby totally ensuring I will not be able to sleep in like everyone else.

3. Whenever Cole goes to sleep she heads over to his toys and either just sits among them or actually plays with them.

Kiwi
1. She does not know how to cover her poop. She'll scratch and scratch and then when she leaves the area this smell finds its way into your nose and you check and sure enough there's a large pile of crap totally exposed in her litter box. Turns out she knows she's supposed to scratch but she's never made the connection as to why.

2. She copies her sister and drinks our water whenever we leave a glass of water exposed and alone for longer than 30 seconds. However, she is not as slick as her sister and often does it right in front of us.

3. She likes to sit on my office chair and sleep all day. She likes to scratch my office chair and climb to the top whenever Cole finds her.

Cole
1. When he sneezes he always sneezes 2-3 times in a row. Never just once. Dada does the same thing.

2. He loves to eat tomatoes directly off the plant. Now that our tomatoes are gone, when we go outside he usually asks "Where are the tomatoes?"

3. He likes to hide in closets. The cutest part about this is when he's hiding he's also giggling like a maniac. Then I pretend I have no idea where he is. This just makes him giggle more.

Mama
1. I wake up on 6 a.m. on the weekends despite my best intention to sleep.

2. I still write in the one sentence journal I started in February. I skip some nights out of fatigue, but I try every other night. I re-read some entries and they make me smile. Mission accomplished.

3. I need complete darkness to sleep, which is why I wake up at 6 a.m. on the weekends (see random facts about Clem to fully understand). This is also why I can hardly ever sleep in when we're camping.

Dada
1. He just made his first trip to the dentist in 15 years. And can I tell you? No major cavities. This guy is the luckiest when it comes to his teeth.

2. He was the first to come up with a foolproof way of bringing water into the bedroom at night that the cats couldn't drink. Water bottle. Too small of an opening for them to try to get into. Genius!

3. Seriously he's a jack of all trades. Keith can fix the brakes on his car, he can renovate our entire bathroom minus the tub, he can fix the shed doors 3 times over until they finally close right, and he can cook a mean pumpkin stew.

Only 11 more weeks...

I can't believe I've
A) made it to 29 weeks
and
B) made it to the end of the first marking period

And still VERTICAL!

So how am I feeling? I feel fine except for the fact that I still have contractions and the side effects from the medicine still suck (although my body is starting to get used to it). Guess what though? Those contractions are not changing my cervix even as I continue to work full time just like they didn't change my cervix when I was on STRICT bed rest.
My high risk doctor assures me everything is stable and I don't need bed rest right now. Those contractions aren't doing a darn thing. Just being a royal pain in the ass is all.

The baby moves and kicks like crazy. She dances on my cervix and pounds my belly when I'm laying down or sitting up. She has hiccups and swims around every night I put Cole to sleep. He tends to twitch every time she kicks and it makes me wonder if he can feel her even as he sleeps.

I love feeling her move. Cole loves resting his head in my belly. I love knowing that in 11 short weeks she'll be in my arms. Cole feels the same way. Cole will be a big brother and Dada and I will have a daughter. A daughter. Which is making you wonder - name? We've made a decision though to not share the name we like until after she is born. Cole doesn't even know it. Hopefully the suspense won't kill you. As for him, he doesn't care. She's just "Baby" to him.

I'm hungrier than ever and have gained a good amount of weight- 26 pounds- not one pound of which do I feel ashamed of. I still look thin since my weight gain tends to go in my thighs and butt and, since I am skinny to begin with, it's not really noticeable. Basically, I look like regular old me with a little belly. Yeah that's right. It's still little. I am 7 months pregnant, and I just don't look it. My belly is small but my daughter's weight gain is right on par with my pregnancy. So again -NOT worried. (Although there is an Ob at my practice who was worried, and I will tell you that I laughed in his face when he told me the bullshit statistic that the average pregnant woman gains 40 pounds yada yada yada. " Did you look at my PRE-PREGNANCY weight?!" I practically shouted at him. I weighed 115 pounds you yodel!!! So what if I gained 23 pounds (at the time). After another phone call last night in which he called to tell me my glucose was fine we discussed the weight (non) issue again. I told him it bothered me that he was so concerned especially considering how underweight I was to start with. He said he'd back off and retract his statement.

The only other thing that I feel a lot of is fatigue. Like any other pregnant working mother of a toddler it's natural to feel tired. It's only made worse when I can't sleep because of neck pain. I'm getting myself to the chiropractor pronto!

Below are two pics from recent ultrasounds which, because of my condition, I get every two weeks.
The first one is a 3D from 27 weeks and the second is a profile from this week (29 weeks).

The all knowing Cole

Wherein Cole remembers everything:

We pass the library and suddenly he's talking about the drum parade he went on during story hour this week. Next thing I know he wants to turn around and go to the library so he can have a drum parade. Two miles later he's in hysterics because I told him the library was closed.

We get home and immediately he zeroes in on the "teats" and starts demanding a lollipop. Dada and I had agreed on one treat a day, but the minute we get home? Come on. Much to my chagrin, he remembered what Dada had said to him as they left for day care - that he could have one later. "Dada wanted me to have it later." I thought this meant Dada told me I could have one later. Only to find out Dada had actually said "Ask Mama later and see what she says." I teach kids who lie in the face of truth. How the hell and why the hell did I fall for that one?

I'm changing his diaper and he's asking me "where did these jammies come from?" I tell him they were a gift from a friend. He said "Mama, you remember everything," which was something Dada had said to him a day or two before. No Cole, YOU remember everything.

Wherein Cole repeats everything we say and thereby sounds like a 35 year old toddler:
Mama: "All he wants is something sugary."
Cole: whining to Dada "All I want is somethin' sugary."

Dada: "The grass is perpetually wet this time of year."
Cole: "Why is the grass perpetually wet?"

Dada: "I can't believe those neighbors are Republican."
Cole: "Why can't you believe they're Repulican (sic)?"
The conversation then went on to include Republican motivation and mud-slinging and Cole was very good natured about it all, asking Dada "why?" at all the appropriate times and nodding his head as if he completely understood Dada's responses.

Wherein every promise or bribe must be honored:

Did you mention to Cole that he could finish watching that tv show after dinner? If for some reason he forgets he will most certainly remember it the next day or some other random time later that week.

Did you promise a yogurt ice pop after dinner? If you forgot, you won't be let down because Cole will be there to remind you.

Did you mention that MAYBE we could stop at Barnes and Noble after shopping? You know where I'm going with this....

If you don't honor what you've promised, God help you.

First thing I'm doing tomorrow? Taking those damn lollipops to school and letting my students voluntarily rot their teeth with them, not my kid.

I'm sure there will be a meltdown of epic proportions simply because I gave him two lollipops this weekend against my better judgment, but that too shall pass. Just like the meltdowns when we switched the bottle caps to sippy caps. Just like the meltdown he had last night when I refused to give him a snack in the middle of dinner. I'm learning I can weather through them (knock on wood). Good thing too, because I'm sure Baby #2 will test me in new and unchartered ways.

The Hurricane that Was

Living on the east coast (or even the gulf coast for that matter) has its perks. You are never too far from a beach. You can honeymoon on the beach and not have to fly somewhere (which is what we did 6 years ago).
You can swim in the ocean at least once a year if not more and you can feel the calmness and sweet salty air on a warm summer day and say "Aah" as you breathe in deeply.

But there is that one downfall.
And over the past two years we really took a beating here in New York.

Hurricane Irene really affected those of us who live in the Hudson Valley and beyond. And Hurricane Sandy affected those who live even closer to the coast in the five boroughs, Long Island and New Jersey.

Because of the threat of the storm, the entire state was in a state of emergency, so each county declared one also. After all, we couldn't forget the affects of Irene on our region. That meant schools were closed for two days. We took two of our four snow days. At first I was upset, but there are so many more things to be thankful for then annoyed about, that I soon got over it. First off, we still have power. We never lost it. Secondly, nothing but our shed door was damaged from the winds. And that was fixable, thanks to my handy husband and his enthusiastic two-year-old assistant. Others have lost power, lost their homes, their cars, and some their lives. It's just scary, but not unimaginable, as Hurricane Katrina showed our country loud and clear.

To read the articles in the New York Times, to browse Facebook posts, you would think the end of the world is coming - gas shortages, angry commuters, no power for a week, people out of homes, relief efforts in full swing. My mind tries not to go there, but I do worry, especially considering I'm bringing yet another innocent life into this world just a few weeks into the new year.

But I am hopeful that this too shall pass and New Yorkers and New Jersey folks can band together like we have in the past and help one another in this time of great need.

On the bright side for me - I had two extra days off with my little family. I got some rest in, didn't experience as much ankle swelling or foot pain, and got to peer into Cole's innocent beautiful little face for four whole days.

Practicing the fine art of taping

Drummer Boy

Autumn Art

Skype Date with Papa Joe

Cork painting

Goodbyes

They're always hard around here.
This is usually the picture just before Dada gets in his car.

This is the usual back and forth between Dada and Cole as Dada drives away:

Dada: "See you later, alligator"
Cole: "You going to SUNY?"
Dada: "yes I'm going to SUNY"
Cole: "you gonna see Peter?"
Dada doesn't hear because he's already driven away.

Currently

This post is dedicated to Cole, whose currentlys I have not been writing because I can never get past my own!

Loving the "Tick or Teat" aspect of Halloween. When he made the connection that he could get some yummy treats placed into his blue Halloween pumpkin basket he was all "oh man this awesome!" We're limiting him to one treat a day and he's not loving that so much.

Looking for the reason why the inside of a pumpkin is so gooey. We saw a segment on a tv show that explained briefly how to carve a pumpkin. From then on he wanted to know why it was gooey inside. We've answered him in every which way and so have a few obliging friends, but to no avail. He's still looking for the answer.

Cooking up ways to get Kiwi and Clem to stay put so he can catch them long enough to pet them. He's even cornered them in their feeding area, but they refused to come out from behind the gate.

Catching up with old friends. Tuesday afternoon we visited Amy and Ellie. Cole had fun playing and being a general bad influence on Ellie (screaming, standing in his chair during snack time, dipping the paintbrush in every color instead of the water...)

Missing his Mama still, but letting go of his anger. For a while Cole was getting really mad that I had to go to work. He was yelling at me when I would get home, trying to shut me out of dinner, refusing to hug me. It was downright upsetting. Finally, I turned to my mommy support group on Facebook because nothing I was saying to him was helping. The advice- a date night. So we took one last week. He loved it. We ate dinner at Mother Earth and then played with trains at Barnes and Noble. And then this weekend he got an extra two days with me due to the hurricane (more on that in another post). I think this helped a lot. Last night when he was asking why I wasn't going to go to storytime with he and Dada he didn't get upset at my response, although he did have a sad face.

Two of the pictures below are from our date night and the other is a pic of Cole and Ellie helping Amy carry a fallen branch to the rear of her property.