The masons

Zoo time

Wes, Oliver, and I decided to make use of our family membership to the zoo this weekend. Wes is celebrating being done with classes for his MPH and home from a recent conference in Washington, DC. This is the first in many weekends that he was really free to enjoy himself and spend time with us, and while I had some work to get done, none of it was imminently due. So off we went to spend some time at the zoo.

I knew one thing Wes would love would be the Jungle Gym at the zoo, a 66,000 square foot playground of sorts. There is a tot area, with everything padded for play, but with Wes around, I knew Oliver would be off to bigger and better things. The place really is amazing. There are slides and tunnels and rope climbs and all sorts of things. Ollie tried climbing the rope ladders with Wes but found it pretty challenging. He really liked climbing up and down the stairs that twisted throughout the tree house of sorts. Wes took him down the BIG and LONG slide, as Oliver was clearly not old enough to go down it himself.

We did enjoy other parts of the zoo as well. We revisited Lorikeet Landing, saw the giraffes, and went by the petting zoo before heading home. We also went to the amphibian and reptile house, which we did not visit last time, as Wes is a big snake fan. I didn't really like it, but there were two really pretty stingrays.

I think Ollie might be heading back to the zoo with my sister and mom, who are coming later this week to take care of him while Wes and I travel. But frankly, I don't think he'll mind.

Hat

Oliver, as many know, really loves his hat. I bought him this camoflauged baseball cap at Target last summer because it's so important for his scars to be protected from the sun. He didn't think much of it last summer and would often take it off. But this spring, when he started wearing it to daycare every day, he became very attached. I think part of it is a recognition that his hat and shoes usually mean he's going outside. Several weeks ago I took him to daycare and forgot his hat, but it was overcast outside and I didn't think they'd necessarily be going out anyway, so I didn't worry about it. When I picked Ollie up that afternoon, this was the note on his sheet. Evidently he became very upset when it was time to go outside and he didn't have his hat.

There's any irony that my and Wes's child has and seems to live in a camoflauged hat as a boy in the south. When we were at my parents' house last weekend, two very southern men complimented him on his hat, in fact, which made me laugh. I'm sure, though, that my brother-in-law will support it and figures it just offsets the less southern aspects of our household.

Swiff it (Swiff it real good)

Sick and tired (but pregnant)

I’m sitting up until Wes gets home from the airport, having returned home from a conference in Washington, DC.  And I cannot wait for him to get home.

I’m 6w4d pregnant now.  The pregnancy still doesn’t seem real, but the symptoms do.  I started getting a little nausea last week, and by late in the week, it was all day.  I’m basically always nauseated now.  I started taking my prenatal vitamins before bedtime so that the worst of the nausea is while I’m asleep instead of in class.  The only drawback is that if I wake up at night – I mean, when I wake up at night to pee – I am horribly nauseated.  The trashcan is now next to my side of the bed.  I’m not eating very much or very often as it often makes the nausea worse.  I literally have ginger ale and saltines in my kitchen.  I’m losing weight, but my belly – leftover from Oliver and a lifetime love affair with ice cream and Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups – is no smaller if not a little bigger.  I’m also worn out, the result of being the mother of a toddler, in class and at work all day, doing homework every night, and on a progesterone supplement.  I’ll take all of it, though, if it means that the pregnancy is going well.  Our ultrasound is on Tuesday, and we should see a heartbeat if everything is okay.

Oliver, on the other hand, loves babies suddenly.  Mind you, we don’t talk about this pregnancy or “a baby” coming.  I’m not suggesting, as some do, that he has some sense of what is happening.  It’s just funny that he suddenly says baby every time he sees one out or in a book.  He stops at the door of the infants room at daycare and stares at them as we go past.  I’ve had a few, if fleeting, moments of what it will be like with him as a “big” brother.  It’s a nice image.

A (more than) three hour tour

Oliver, Lucy, and I went to see my parents in Georgia last weekend, the same afternoon that Grandma Kay had to go home, too.  The trip is normally three hours on the dot, if there's not a lot of traffic and I don't have to stop to clean up dog barf.  This was not to be on this trip, though.  Around fifty miles out of town was an enormous sinkhole on I-24E.  The eastbound interstate was closed, and the traffic was rerouted through a tiny rural town for almost 10 miles.  The delay was two hours.  I had timed the trip so that most of the driving would happen while Oliver was napping.  So when he was the most tired for his nap, we were in stop-and-go traffic.  He woke up and fussed most of the way through.  I, on the other hand, had a crisis situation (one that will not surprise my sister) detailed on the other blog.

Oliver cried and slept on an off the last two hours.  It was awful to hear, but I knew we couldn't stop long enough with the dog in the car (on a warm day) to really give him any relief, so I thought it would be better to just get there.  We were both very happy to arrive.

Oliver spent the weekend playing with mom and dad's vastly more interesting array of toys and traipsing around the beautifully landscaped outside.  He visited my dad at school, played reluctantly in the wooded area behind their house (liked: tossing stones in the creek; disliked: falling in the water), and really enjoyed the playground in the neighborhood.  He got really upset when I took him to the nursery at church on Sunday, but the woman working in the room said he calmed down pretty quickly.

The trip home was, mercifully, much easier.  Lucy did not barf (which she did on the way down), Oliver napped and sat happily, and the whole thing was over in around three hours.

I love Lucy