Breaking the Cabin Fever

After several days of being sick Tessa and I had to get out of the house or we would have gone nuts (and she would have OD'd on Sesame Street), so we went down to North Vernon for another visit before Mom and Becky go back to school. I'm feeling okay, not great, and man I sure would love to take some stronger drugs. Luckily Tessa has not gotten the bug!

Even a little sympathy cry couldn't stop poor David from crying

Tessa learning the ways of the world from her older cousins. Leia just moved back to IN from FL so they are getting aquainted.

For the unfamiliar from top L: Ashley (Kelly's daughter), my first cousin Kelly, Leia (Kelly's twin sister Amanda's daughter), nephew David, and Tessa

In furry child related news something is up with the dogs. I don't know if they know I'm pregnant or we've been neglecting them or what, but there's been alot of peeing going on around her. Especially up in our closet, and TWICE Hayden has peed on my clothes in the closet! Hayden is not one to pee inside so the fact that he's targeting my things is pure rebellion.

I know it was Hayden cause as any dog owner will tell you....boy puddles and girl puddles are different...you can tell when there's been leg lifting. Not cool. Blythe if you're reading this you need to come perform some dog whispering here.

Good Pics of the Boys

We weren't there but Mom wanted me to post a couple good pics of the boys at the lake. They had fun fishing and being boys.

with great grampaw Sargent

Where Did That Come From?

Ah funny story from today. Probably totally embarassing for Tessa...someday of course. Today I can still tell it, haha.

Tessa was enjoying her mandatory nakey time today. It's not uncommon for her to tinkle during nakey time and we just mop it up. I moved her potty into the living room today with the hopes of catching her quick and throwing her on it. One can hope.

Of course today she pooped and of course it was on the carpet. No biggie, we have dogs, I'm prepared to deal with such a problem. But the funny part was she freaked out. She was pointing at her pile and screaming. She actually started crying, big crocodile tears. We cleaned it up quick and threw on a diaper, and it took a minute or two for her to calm down.

Must be a strange idea to her, strange and apparently very upsetting. Guess we're not quite ready for potty training, maybe in the fall.

Here's some pics from our visit with Amy and Eva the other day!

Oh good Daddy turned on the hose. I love the hose

Most of all I love to drink from the hose. Mommy had to cut me off cause it was almost bedtime.

Hey Eva you look nice, help me fill up my pool so I can swim?

How does this thing work?

Um hey there's no water here people. What do you mean it's too late to swim?

Fine I'll just eat some dirt instead

Bound to Happen Eventually

It was only a matter of time before I caught a bad cold while pregnant. It's been about 4-5 months since I've really been sick so I guess my number was up.

Thank goodness Jeremy was home today to take care of me. He even made me some homeade chicken soup with our frozen stock. Tessa is also teething on three teeth at once so she's been pretty grumpy too, poor Jeremy.

Tessa and I cuddled in bed and watched a couple episodes of Jack's Big Music Show. I hate for her to watch much tv but at least it's educational and pretty cute too. She also loves Sesame Street.

Of course I can only take benadryl and nasal spray so it's no fun. I'm pretty used to that. Between breastfeeding and being pregnant it's been over two years since I could pop a Nyquil.

Before I got very sick we had a nice dinner last night with Aunt Amy and my cousin Eva, as well as her future mother in law. It was really nice cause I don't see them much, and Jeremy smoked us a big salmon. Tessa was a ham and so excited to show off for company that she hardly ate. I was just a little bit out of it and forgot to take any pics...hoping they will email me some!

Fun Online Game

Identifying foods like cereals and stuff just by the picture. I got a 18/24 on the pasta one, which I think is pretty good. Identifying spices by pic is hard, I got a 14/20 thanks only to their little clues.

Lots of fun ones to chose from: http://food.aol.com/pasta-id-quiz

We Hired our Doula!

Well we had our 'interview' meeting this morning with our doula, Paula, here at the house. It was really great. She talked to us about what a doula does and she wanted to know all about Tessa's birth. She feels really confident that we can do natural childbirth this time with her help. She even shed some insight into the events of Tessa's birth and how we can do things a little differently.

We will have 2-3 prenatal visits with her to learn breathing and comfort techniques..sort of like a personal lamaze coach. She will be on call when the time comes to hopefully join us at our house for early labor at home (like we did with Tessa) and accompany us to the hospital.

Basically she doesn't do anything medical like cervical checks or anything but she will be solely in charge of coaching me through breathing and doing massage, things like that. She also acts as our advocate at the hospital to make sure the doctors understand and follow our birth plan. So it takes some pressure off of Jeremy, he can relax a little and enjoy the process.... and maybe this time he won't be whipping out the birthing book during labor saying 'what do we do now?!', haha.

So basically I am now pretty excited to do this again! I feel like we will be better equipped and we can reach our goal! Why am I so into doing natural childbirth?...I'm crazy that's why, but hey it's good to have dreams.

We were talking about how quickly they wisked Tessa to the NICU and that we saw her for less than 5 min before they took her away, and I got all excited about the thought of having our baby stay in our room, Jeremy cutting the chord and placing it on my tummy right away. We didn't get to do much of that last time. Ugh...getting emotional.

Addicted to Liquid

I had a routine OB appointment today for peanut and got to hear a strong hearbeat, yay! While I was there I asked the doc to test my pee (since they already had some) for a bladder infection. I've been peeing SOOO much, so much that I cannot sleep cause I'm up every 30 min. Doc noted it is awfully early in pregnancy for that....that usually comes later when the baby is squishing your bladder.

So they're going to test it and get back to me.

But of course he asks 'do you drink too much liquid?' Well frankly I probably do. I've always been a big drinker, haha. I know part of the problem is that I drink alot but how can I not? I'm thirsty ya know, and since I'm pregnant (and when I was breastfeeding too) I don't want to get dehydrated.

I dunno, is this alot?:
~8-12 oz of juice
~8-12 oz of skim milk
~72 oz of water (3 refills on my giant cup)
~24 oz of diet coke (2 cans)
~12-24 oz of assorted other liquids (non-alcho beer, caf free pop, iced or hot tea)

= approx 135oz of liquids a day

Do most people (pregnant or not) drink alot less than that?- honest question.

Jackpot

Last night we went to Tessa's second cousin's dual birthday party. Ashley turned 7 and Leia turned 6 and it was a Hannah Montana explosion! Tessa with the girls and their bunnies. Her favorite part of the party was the baloons.
While we were there my cousin Amanda gave us a TON of Leia's smaller size bows that she doesn't wear anymore. How fun! I think Tessa with have a bow in her hair from now on. She even gave us some that have small snaps so I can do tiny little pigtails in the back. I've been trying with hairbands but that doesn't work.

Checking out her stash.
Thanks Amanda!

How to Eat a Whole Box of Cereal Bars in Two Days

from Tessa....
Mommy gives me a half a cereal bar but I don't like to eat it right away. I like to walk around and caress it and lick it a while. I put it on the floor so I can pick up a toy and Hayden eats it. I CRY!! NOOOO! I want my cereal bar back and he ate it! Mama help I need one....I need it NOW!!!!! Mommy gives me another half and I eat it.

Repeat the same thing during afternoon snacktime and again the next day.
Oh yeah and Mommy ate two of them. Now they are gone.

15 Month Checkup

We went to the docs this morning for Tessa's 15 checkup. Here are her stats:

22 lb- 40th %tile
31 inches- 80th %tile
19 in head circumf- 90 %tile

So physically she's the same although both her height and weight are pretty much the same as her last well check. The doc said her size is great, especially since she's such a good eater...I guess she's burning off the calories with all her running around (what a novel idea huh?)

Her poor bum still looks yeasty so we're to continue the anti fungal cream. I'm blaming the sweltering humidity for this (combined with thick cloth dipes).

He said she should be saying 3-6 words which is about right so I'm not as worried as I was about her language...she'll get there. She say daddy, doggy, dipe, hi, Rosie (which comes out oozy), and recently 'nat' when she wants a snack and bangs on the pantry door. No she does not say Mama...at least not on purpose.

In Peanut news we are nearing the 2nd trimester, can you believe it? I am feeling the energy coming back which is great. I had my second craving the other day (after the first one for the forbidden lunch meat). I really wanted chips and queso cheese. I know, real healthy huh? But it's all I could think about so I stopped by the store and got some. I was tempted to go to Qdoba but I was good and avoided the chain!

Photo Editing

Oooh I didn't know I was smart enough to figure this out. Look what I did in photobucket. Cool!

Catch-Up

Tessa loves black beans, which of course is quickly followed by a bath
We went to the museum again with Mom this time

This is what she was looking at, the underside of the Chahooli glass sculpture

See I told you she was a genius

We had our garage sale this morning. It was pretty small but we still made $130, woo hoo! Now we can start to move our remaining junk out of Tessa's log cabin room and start slowly decorating it. Speaking of which I bought a country style twin size quilt for her big girl bed that is perfect. It was originally $80 but I got it on sale for $30...double woo hoo! This is the week for good deals.

Lil Mama

Tessa's Mamaw got her a baby which is her favorite toy of the moment. She's been carrying it around and will even give it a kiss (lick it's face) if I ask her to. We're just going to call it "Baby" so she can get used to that word.

Her other favorite thing is that striped bag she wears as a purse. My friend Marcie made it out of old shirt as a gift bag (cause she's just that crafty) and Tessa adopted it as her own. She likes to put it on and walk around collecting things.

We went to a garage sale this morning and got some awesome stuff for Tessa. I got like 8 shirts and 1 pair of jeans ,all Baby Gap for $9..woohoo! After we had also hit some back to school kids clothes sale at the outlet mall, Lil Mama is all ready for fall! (me too considering our recent 100 degree weather)

Brilliant Babe

Tessa has a new trick. When asked 'where is your tummy?' she will lift up her dress and point to it! She did it many times during nakey time tonight too, then she would lift up my shirt and point to my tummy. She's a genius!

I tried to get it on camera but the camera distracts her.

The other thing I'm working on is teaching her to kiss. She thinks it's pretty funny but hasn't figured it out. Sometimes she'll let you give her a nice kiss on the mouth and other times she'll wait until you're about to kiss and open her mouth and lick you. I'm positive she learned that move from her Dad.

Pure Summer

We finally whipped out the baby pool today- about time! Tessa's first instict was to cry but she got into it. She figured out it was way more fun to throw things into the pool than actually be in it. Playing with hose was a hit too.

Chilling with Rosie. Hayden was inside hiding from the water of course.

Nothing says summer like a fresh peach

15 Month Pics

Man it sure is getting harder and harder to get a good picture of this child. Since we had those great pics with her and the spring flowers, we thought we'd get her with our summer daisy patch. I got this dress from a street vendor in San Francisco, so cute.

As you can see from her recent pics it's hard to get her to not bite her bottom lip. She's been doing it even since she stopped nursing, and some days there's little purple bruises under her lip from a whole day of chewing. I guess it's better than a thumbsucking or paci habit.

New Living Room Digs

During my lazy day today I got a bug up my butt that Tessa's stuff needed to be moved around in the living room. I didn't take a before picture but she had her toy box basically shoved up in a corner and no other room for her things.

So we moved the chase lounge and brought down a few things from upstairs including the Art Center thingy that Aunt Jessie got her for Christmas. I had put it away at the time because of the age limit but she's totally into it now! I also broke out the floor block things I got with some Toys R Us money after her birthday.

She is set up for learning! Which is good. I think we need to work more on learning words and stuff as she's still not saying much.

This little switch around just makes me happy. Our living room has better feng sushi or something. Sometimes a simple rearrangement of furniture can make things better :)

Thanks Mamaw Betty for the great little chair, not only does she love it, it fits perfectly with the little coffee table we already had!

Peanut on Camera

That's it's head in the bottom right and little feet on the left- 10 wks

Don't be overly concerned that I've had another ultrasound, everything is fine. I was continuing to have bleeding so my OB office wanted to see for themselves. She said the ultrasound looked beautiful and she sees no reason for the bleeding so it's probably just a fluke thing. According to them 'some women just bleed'...is this TMI??

I have been ordered to have a lazy weekend however, which will comence after the worship team party at our house tonight. And she also said for the time being to lift Tessa only when I have to which is pretty hard since she's been very fussy during her illness and wants to be held.

But most importantly, Peanut looks great!!

On the Calendar

We have a meeting in two weeks with our potential doula. I guess it's sort of a interview for us to decide if we want to hire her. I'm excited to get the process started with the goal of trying again (and harder this time) for natural childbirth.

The doula said to have questions and concerns prepared to ask her. Does anyone out there have experience with a doula and have ideas what I should ask? I'm open to suggestions. I guess more than anything is has to be someone you feel comfortable and trusting with.

I think having a doula will be a good thing. I learned last time that while the labor nurses are great it is really not their job to help you with natural childbirth measures, so all the burden lays on Jeremy, and I think having a professional there would be helpful.

For those who may be confused as to what I'm talking about: http://www.dona.org/mothers/index.php

Proof I'm Addicted

For your reading pleasure...a blog about our pact to avoid chain restaurants:

http://benningtonsdininglocal.blogspot.com/

My Favorite Cartoon Character

Tessa has been into tv alot since she's been sick and we discovered a new show called Oswald. The show itself is pretty weird (like alot of these crazy shows on the Noggin channel) but there's an awesome character....a little dachshund in a bun named 'Wienie Girl'.



We are officially calling Rosie 'Wienie Girl' from now on...if only we could find her a big bun to wear.

Tessa is getting better and no longer has a fever. She broke out in a rash yesterday which led the doctor to believe that maybe she didn't have strep (they didn't do a test) in the first place or possibly had an allergic reaction to the meds...who knows. Either way she is off meds since her fever is gone, and we are all feeling fine.

Poor Girl

Tessa started a high fever the last two days of our vacation and I thought it was just teeth. It didn't go away so we went to the docs this morning and she has strep throat.

Poor baby...I didn't even know her throat was hurting her since she's been eating and drinking fine. It sucks when they can't communicate with you.

Hoping and praying that I don't get it since there's very little medication I could take...that would make for a truly miserable household!

Lake Pictures

We rode the pontoon a couple times, which made Tessa fall asleep almost immediately.

We had the vacation look going on


We went swimming in the lake. Tessa wasn't overly impressed but she didn't hate it either.
We ate JoJo's soft pretzels of course
We played yard bowling

We visited with Gramaw and Grampaw and watched the flotilla (which I have no pics of nor any pics of us all together...oops), as well as Jeremy's impressive fireworks display

We had nakey time, lake style

We danced in the car..

Our New Project

Over lunch today Jeremy and I made a pact to start a new food related project in our house. After enjoying lunch at our favorite new restaurant, a locally owned grill right down the street, and noticing the nearby failing coffee shop is under new management.....we have decided we will try to avoid ALL chain restaurants for the next year. A challenge indeed, especially since Greenwood is chain restaurant central.

We made two exceptions. When Jeremy is in an airport on a business dinner (and can't choose) he can eat whatever. And I can have a Starbucks only when I am actually inside Meijers or Target (which I do enjoy ever so much while grocery shopping), otherwise I have to go to the local coffee shop.

It should be a fun experiment and the bonus is that it eliminates all fast food, which is a great thing. Most importantly we are supporting our local businesses. I am going to keep a journal in case we decide to write a book, haha. Wish us luck!

History is Bound to Repeat

We are home from our vacation on Cedar Lake and we had a great time (stay tuned for pics). It was very relaxing except for the day we went to the hospital.

I thought I would get off the hook with getting Rhogham injections with this pregnancy. My doc told me I didn't get one until 30 wks unless I had bleeding and then to call right away. Well of course I did have some bleeding, and being stubborn I waited two days to call.

I was hoping my docs office would let me come in for an injection when returned home in a few days, but they reminded me that rhogham needs to be given with 72 hrs of the start of bleeding or an Rh- mommy could miscarry. So since it had been 48 hrs they wanted me to go the emergency room. Ugh.

So we went to the ER in Sturgis, MI where they took great care of me. I got an exam, ultrasound and ultimately the injection I needed. Poor Tessa was antsy in the room and wanting to touch everything but we weren't there too long. Compared to other ER visits I've experienced this was easy.

Everything they saw looks great, and we the bonus was that we got an ultrasound! The peanut is looking great with a healthy heartbeat and yes there is only one :-)