The grandmas came to visit

I'm happy to say that visits from grandmas are now becoming regular enough that I don't feel the need to blog about every one.  But I would be remiss to mention the wave of grandmas we've had here in the last few weeks.  Wes's mom, Kay, came a few weeks ago and was followed only a few days later by my mother.  I got to see a bit of the city with Kay and shared ice cream from the Pied Piper Creamery with both.  Mom and I went to the Pfunky Griddle, a breakfast place where you cook your own there at the table, with a friend from childhood who is now also living in Nashville (a very happy coincidence, indeed).  With both, we had lots of playtime and books, and mom and I monitored a nasty cold that Oliver fought for several days.  We even managed an early-morning trip to the zoo, goat petting and all though the big playground was closed.  Oliver also cemented his name for my mother, Paw-Paw (which, ironically, is also what my aunt's grandkids call her).

It's sometimes hard not being closer to family, but we are much closer now than we were in Chicago, where all visits were preceded by months of planning around the cheapest plane tickets.

Weekly Weigh-In: Week 20+1

This picture is actually from a little more than a week ago, after my graduate school orientation.  I feel like my belly is out there even more than usual now, but I also think that the view from the top makes it seem bigger than it probably appears to onlookers.  I'm still noticeably smaller than with Oliver (see comparison picture here), but that's partly because I'm smaller all over.  My two pairs of non-maternity shorts are almost at the end of their wearability, but fortunately I still have lots of stretchy summer dresses (like this one) to wear for the next several weeks.  Once fall is here, I have two pairs of maternity jeans and two pairs of maternity khakis to get me through until the really cold winter sets in.

I've been trying to stay more active now that school is in session and I spend so much of my day sitting in class or at my desk in the office (our pod, as it's called).  I swam last week, once for real at the student recreation center and once with Oliver just for fun.  I pushed him to campus in the stroller one day, mowed the lawn, and did lots of yard work.  The baby lets me know when I need to take a rest.  I tend to get lightheaded and just overall don't feel well.  So I sit on the chaise with my feet up, drink water or lemonade, and watch a 30-minute episode of something taped (or, increasingly, check email or do schoolwork).

I am, as of this morning, 126.5 lbs.  That up again from my last weight, a 1.5 lb. I think.  Wes keeps reminding me that it's okay.  And the baby's biggest job at this point is gain weight, so I will, too.  I have been more lax about having some ice cream or (my recent indulgence) dark chocolate-covered almonds, but I'm trying to keep the portions and frequency reasonable. I don't want to have to kill myself after this is over to lose the weight! I know that at this point I should just try to be healthy and stop stepping on the scale so often.  Old habits die hard, though.  Doing so helped me keep my weight in check pre-baby, and now it's hard to stop weighing and worrying.

My next midwife's appointment isn't for about 3 1/2 weeks, but since the little girl is moving more and more, I know she's doing okay (or ostensibly so) in the meantime.  I can see some slight movement on the outside (still very low), but mostly it's her rolls and gentle nudges that I notice.  Here's to a healthy second half of the pregnancy!

Oliver's Alphabet (Version 1.11.2.3)

A naked G is a dangerous thing

This morning, Wes and Ollie took a shower together after putting in several hours out in the yard.  Wes let him run around naked while he got dressed.  He does this often when he's supervising Ollie after a bath or shower.  I've been nervous recently though when Wes puts Ollie on a bed or lets him on rugs while he is naked.  Ollie doesn't have seemingly any awareness of when he is about to pee or is even peeing.  So when I saw him run into our closet while I was showering, I was especially nervous.  Oliver likes to go "hide" behind my clothes sometimes, which mostly annoys me because it wrinkles and filthifies my clothes (yes, it's a word...that I just made up).  But today, he was also naked.  And had had a lot to drink this morning while out in the sun.

And sure enough, Wes went in to get him and came out only after a bit of a delay.  And with a look of shame on his face (Wes, not Ollie).  Oliver had evidently chosen the corner of the closet as the most appropriate location to pee.  Wes used the same cleaner we use for Lucy's "accidents" to help get it out, but it also wasn't the volume Lucy usually produces.

Needless to say, Wes is being a little more vigilant when supervising a naked Ollie.  And this, combined with Oliver having twice removing both shorts and diaper this morning, only further reinforces that he really should potty train.  Lucy, on the other hand, is sleeping soundly on her bed, reveling in the fact that someone got in trouble today for peeing in the closet -- and for the first time, it wasn't her.

Today was the first time

Someone who didn't know me made a comment about me being pregnant.  The lady at the CVS counter, who was very chatty about my purchases (always a dangerous choice in a drug store, I think), noticed my belly and said something.

It's still isn't obvious to everyone, though, especially those who didn't know me before the Baby B belly.  I had my graduate students (all young and female) over for dinner last night, and until I mentioned it an hour or more in, no one said a word about it.  When I finally brought it up (that I might be out a little in January), someone said, "Oh, good.  I was wondering, but I just wasn't sure."

All in a day's work

Things Oliver did today:

• Got poop on his pillowcase, which necessitated the washing of all bed linens
• Moved his alphabet puzzle to the bathroom while I showered, but then abandoned it to "rock rock" in the rocking chair
• Selected a donut from the extensive variety at Fox's Donut Den
• Drank two sippy cups of milk before 9am
• Helped brush Lucy's teeth and gave her two dental treats
• Read Lucy (now pronounced "Woosy") his Ten Rubber Duckies book
• Tried to ride Lucy's back while she chewed on her bone and tried, unsuccessfully, to play rope with Lucy
• Spun around in circle while singing the snippets of ring-around-the-rosie until he got dizzy
• Had a time-out, or several

"A three-hour tour"

Our great adventure to Denver is done, and my house and mind are finally in enough order to blog about it.  Oliver had a great time on the trip and did a wonderful job traveling.  Our flight out was very easy.  A friend dropped us at the airport, my suitcase (that I thought was not heavy at all) was right at the maximum weight, and the plane left on time.  After checking out everything in the airport and on the airplane, Oliver fell asleep for the first hour or more of the flight.  The woman sitting next to me was also pregnant, about as far along as me, so we chatted the whole time.  Ollie woke up about halfway into the flight and had a snack, played with some toys, and was generally easygoing.  He did have to sit on my lap both directions since the flight was full, but we both did okay with it.  I'm not sorry, though, that starting this September we have to buy a seat for him -- my legs were certainly achy after the trip home.

Kim and I had a loose structure to the days.  Oliver slept in a low trundle bed next to me at night, so he and I woke up together around 7am central time, or around 6am there.  Oliver would start to stir, look up at me, then get all his pillows and blankets and climb up into bed with me.  We usually read a few books first thing before getting changed.  Kim got him a booster seat to use while there, which he loved ("Oliver's chair").  He also loved Kim's cat, Suki, who was tolerant of if not entirely amused by Oliver stalking him.  Suki let Ollie pet her a few times but seemed to treasure after-bedtime time.  Oliver was not impressed with Suki's access to the dining table and would order her "Off!" whenever she got up.  He didn't quite get the difference between a dog on the table and a cat on it.

We took the kids to a park two blocks away pretty much every day.  Ollie had a minor meltdown the one day Kim pushed Amelia, who is ten months, in the stroller, and he had to walk, but he eventually saw the merits of his relative freedom.  He loved the park and as such has learned that word, asking to go nearly every day (and not appreciating the 15-degree or more difference, and significant difference in humidity, between Denver and Nashville).  We sampled some of the other parks in Denver's extensive park district each day, including the city zoo, which part of City Park.  We had lunch one day and got to share our picnic area with two beautiful peacocks strutting around.  We also went to Book Babies at the public library one day, with songs and choral reading, followed by lunch at the neighboring park (at which Oliver got his first ride on a merry-go-round).

Naptime was somewhat challenging since Amelia still naps twice a day and Oliver just once, usually midday.  But we could usually push his a little to get out in the middle of the day in addition to the morning.  I happily spent everyone's naptime reading and getting some extra shut-eye of my own.  Kim made some wonderful meals for Oliver to try -- a taco casserole and a broccoli-and-orzo mix -- and he also had Thai for the first time, of which he was (no surprise) a fan.  We all went out for pizza and ice cream Thursday night, which both the kids seemed to like.

I was nervous about taking a trip like this.  Oliver and I traveled a lot by car last summer, when he was much younger, but that has certain advantages to it in that I could stop when I needed and wasn't at risk of bothering other travelers (except maybe with my sub-par driving).  Fortunately, Oliver is a pretty easy kid still, happy to watch what's going on around him.  He did like the apps I downloaded onto my iPod Touch, though it was hard to hear them in the back of the plane.  And he really likes the few new toys I bought for the trip.  I'm not sure I'll do much flying next summer, by myself with two kids, but it's fun to have these memories of when there was only one!

Something's fishy

We'd only been in Denver a day or so when Oliver decided to leave his mark on Kim and Dean's house and guest room.  While supposedly down for a nap one day, Oliver found my DHA supplements, which are essentially fish oil, and popped not one, but two, on himself, his Lovie and blanket, and the coverlet for Kim's guest bed.  I'm supremely relieved that he didn't try to swallow them, since they're just the right size for him to choke on.  They, unlike the prenatals, are not in a child-proof bottle (which he could probably also get open if he tried really hard).  But if you've never smelled fish oil, you might not appreciate the challenge this presented.  Fish oil smells awful.  It smells, well, like a fish market.  Like standing directly in a vat of room-temperature fish.  It stinks.  His clothes reeked.  Heck, he reeked.  The coverlet and room reeked.  His monkey and blanket smelled awful, and since it took me a while to realize they'd been affected, they kept re-smellifying (yes, I just made that a word) him.

I washed the offending clothes, stuffed animals, and blankets, to little avail.  I scrubbed Oliver in the bath with four different kinds of soap, including a pear body scrub, which helped some, but he kept getting re-dosed when he went to bed.  I tried to keep the blanket in particular from him, but he would go find it after I put him to bed at night.

Thanks to the wonders of the internet and my mother, I have found resolution since returning home.  The clothes, Lovie, and blanket all got soaked in vinegar and sunned for 24 hours, then washed in a vinegar rinse, then washed with regular detergent.  Nothing got back to normal, but none of it smells like fish.  The clothes were ones we left at school anyway, as a spare pair, so that's fine.  The blanket is super-soft from all the washing and doesn't really smell at all.  Lovie, however, carries the faint scent of vinegar.

Oliver's first donut

Chocolate icing with sprinkles, like Grandma Neiheisel used to make them.

Collateral damage

Suffice it to say, Oliver has a very hard head.

The hydrangeas were pink...

And the ultrasound tech said, "Girl."  I had my 18-week anatomy scan this morning, and in addition to finding out that the baby looks healthy and continues to measure with a due date of January 11 (a few days earlier than by my count), we found out that we will be getting a daughter and Oliver a sister.  I've been so looking forward to this day, to knowing whether it's a "she" or a "he."  I really was hoping for a girl when I got pregnant with Oliver and had a few moments of disappointment when all my friends found out they were having girls.  But I got over it in about 2 seconds because, hey, what's not fun about boys.  And he is fun.  So fun.  And I could not imagine a girl now.  This time, I was truly and honestly going to be excited either way.  Wes, my sister, and I were all imagining Oliver with a little brother.  Wes and I were imagining all the fun we've had with Oliver, his delight in life and great energy.  I knew I wanted a girl at some point though, so if it was now, then great.  Wes and I both went into the ultrasound thinking -- for no particular reason -- that it was a girl (I'm 2-2 now, having accurately predicted both genders).

And my reaction was similar this time to last time.  The tech did the whole scan -- checking for parts and vessels and taking measurements and then looked for the gender.  Her comments at first -- "I think I already know" and "If it's a boy, it's usually easy to tell at this point" made me think it was indeed a boy.  And I had a smile on my face, imagining this new little boy.  And then she said, "But you were right.  It's a girl."  And the smile stayed.  As I walked with Wes to the parking lot, I was surprised to feel a little disappointment that it wasn't a boy.  I think I said it when I found out with Oliver, too -- it's not that I don't want it to be a girl, but that means it can't be a boy.  (And no, I don't wish I were having fraternal boys/girl twins!  I'll leave that to friends.)  Wes is worried he won't know what to do with a girl.  But truly, as long as he wipes from front to back, he need not do anything differently with a girl than he does with his boy.  And maybe she will have Oliver's zest for life and great energy and some things all her own.  And in the meantime, I get to buy girl clothes.

Weigh In: Week 16

124.5 pounds. I went up, then back down after the peaches, then back up to more than this, and then it settled back here. I'm satisfied. That's 2.5 pounds over my lowest weight, and still a little less than where I started from. I think I need to accept that at this point, I'm just going to gain weight. And that's okay.

My belly is starting to really show. My shirts tend to be looser, and my shorts are fitting below the belly (I can still wear 2-3 pairs on non-maternity shorts), so it's not terribly obvious normally, but in a dress, I'm clearly either pregnant or carrying some really serious weight right at my waistline. I haven't really taken a belly picture before now because I felt like there wasn't much to see, but I don't want to keep waiting and find that time has escaped me.

I'm feeling movement, very sporadically, and getting very excited about our next ultrasound.

(For a comparison picture when pregnant with Oliver, see here.)

"Baby"

I was cleaning out the eaves recently when I found my baby doll from when I was a little girl. I pulled it out, thinking that I could use it to prepare Oliver for the new baby. But he had other plans. He has already fully adopted this child. He gets her out from the toy storage area in the morning and carries her around. He's her "baby." He still plays with all his other toys, and he doesn't mind when I take her to hold her, but he does like her. A good sign, I hope.

In John Deere green

Last week, our little 4-year-old neighbor across the street came to our house with a gift in tow.  She brought Oliver a John Deere lawnmower toy, completely with gas bar and spinning blades (encased with bits intended to be grass).  She even wrote Oliver a little note.  It was precious.

Oliver was perhaps oblivious to the generosity being displayed (though, I assume from my repetition that evening, he does often say "Thank you" when pushing it around) but not to this fantastic new toy.  He cried that night when we took it away so that he could go to bed.  Oliver LOVES his lawnmower.  He pushes it inside and, yesterday while Wes was doing lawn work, outside.  He makes a sound to show that it's running (the same sound, interestingly, as when his truck is running), pulls on the gas bar, and pushed the buttons on the base.  If it had a pull cord and grass bag, I'm sure he'd use those, too.

Yesterday was the most precious.  Wes went out to weed eat and mow the front yard, and Oliver was not going out without his lawnmower. (He's also, on other days, lugged it up and downstairs while I was doing cleaning.)  He stayed an appropriate distance from Wes and the power tools, but he went back and forth across that yard any number of times.  He stopped to rechoke the mower (must be a problem with the starter) and remove leaves from the base, but that was it.  More than one car slowed to watch the pair of boys in the front yard with their mowers.

Oliver did reciprocate the gift.  I baked chocolate chip cookies the next night, and we took over a few along with a picture Oliver made for Kadence.

Apples and peaches

My sister well remembers the one time I actually vomited during my pregnancy with Oliver.  I was maybe 10 weeks pregnant, visiting her and her husband in Savannah.  We were going to go walking at her high school's track, and so I had an apple beforehand as breakfast, not wanting to be overly full.  I also took my prenatal vitamins.  Maybe a lap or so around, while Laura was on the phone with an office, I threw up every bit of that carefully chewed apple on the side of the track.  Laura joked that she had "broken" me.

Last week, the same thing happened, only this time, it was peaches.  Ollie and I came home from somewhere, and since it was only 10:30 AM, but I was hungry, we shared some sliced peaches.  And then, maybe 30 minutes or so later, they all came back up -- violently.  This time, though, I was into the second trimester and worried that I'd had food poisoning or something that would hurt the baby.  I didn't eat much more that day, and Wes thought that no harm had been done.  Oliver, on the other hand, found the whole thing fascinating and discovered an entirely new use for the potty.

Old McDonald had a farm

Last Saturday, Ollie and I went tot he Tennessee Agricultural Museum for what was billed as "Old McDonald's Farm."  Unfortunately, it didn't quite live up to that, but it was fun nonetheless.  There were saddles around for kids to sit on, some baby chicks (which Oliver loved but wasn't sure about holding), an older and younger horse (which were spotted and so confused Ollie -- "cow?"), and some miniature donkey.  I paid $3 so Oliver could ride one -- an experience I know meant far more to me than to him.  But Ollie enjoyed his ride on Eyeore nonetheless.  He also got to see a woman spinning wool on a spindle, and like the boy that he is, he liked seeing how the machine worked.  I was hoping there would be some cows and sheep and pigs, too, but it was blasted hot, and they likely would have been very, very hot, so perhaps it's for the best.

Like school on Saturday

Oliver and I have spent some more Summer of Fun Days together.  In our second week, Ollie stayed home from daycare three days, and we had some fun outings.  On Tuesday and Thursday, we went to classes at local play places.  On Tuesday we tried out a music class at Gymboree, and on Thursday we tried out a fitness class at Little Gym.  Both places offer free first classes, so we went to see if it was something we would like to do this fall.  Both are located in towns south of Nashville, so it was a little bit of an outing, and both classes ran up against lunch and naptime, which can be dangerous (Oliver falls asleep in the car and then has trouble taking an actual nap after lunch).  But I thought it would be worth a try.

Oliver liked both classes well enough.  The class at Gymboree was a little more structured, and there were a lot of songs and movement that, if you didn't know them ahead of time, were hard to learn in one class.  Oliver kept staring at the woman running the class like, "Why don't you stop singing and just let us play on all these cool things."  It made me laugh because it reminded me so much of Wes and what he would have thought had he been there.  Oliver liked Gymboree a little better, which offers some structure and lots of rotating options, but lots of freedom to do and try whatever he liked.  He had a few problems in sharing with others -- something I don't think has problems with at daycare, where he knows all the other kids -- but he got over it quickly enough.  Given the option, I'd love it if I could use either facility on a drop-in basis -- when I have time to take him and other options are not available.  The costs of the class are a little high, the trip is a little long to get there, and part of me feels like I'm paying someone else to teach me how to play with my own child.

That Wednesday, Oliver and I went to storytime at the local library.  It includes music, movement, stories being read, and puppets.  Oliver was very content to sit on my lap and watch for a bit over 30 minutes, but then his attention waned, so we left.  There's a beautiful children's section there in the main library, which hopefully we'll get back to in time.

I think I would be bigger in getting Oliver into a class structure at one of these facilities or being a regular at storytime were he not already in a fairly structured environment at daycare.  He knows his teachers and classmates, and he seems to do very well there.  He did also have another class situation -- a parent and child swim class at the Vanderbilt Student Recreation Center.  We were there for 9 classes over two weeks.  It, unfortunately, also met at a bad time -- 5:30-6:00 PM, which meant we weren't getting home until 6:30 PM.  One of Oliver's classmates from daycare was also in the class, and the two were almost beside themselves with excitement over seeing each other there.  Oliver did great -- the teacher recommended that he, like the other children, move on to the next class next summer, one that is completely instructor-run (read: no mommy in the water) -- and he seemed to really enjoy it and get more comfortable.  He even learned was "scoop hands" are!

So for now Ollie and I have no class.  Come late August, I will have more than I know what to do with!

Down and dirty

If Oliver knows how to do one thing, it's get dirty. And recently, he's had Lucy to help him. We recently pulled some plants out of the yard, and now Lucy has uncrowded dirt to dig holes in. Last week (and again today), I found Lucy and Oliver plotting together in the backyard. (If I'm working in the kitchen, I'll let them be out there without me, and I check in on them every few minutes if I don't see them out the window.) Lucy digs, Oliver throws dirt against the side of the house and on Lucy, and they both get filthy.
Trouble, I tell you. Trouble.