Christmas, Oh Baby!

Today is Alethea’s 20 month birthday, but because I haven’t done any blogging about our Christmas celebrations, I thought maybe we’d save the Alethea update for later and instead let you know that A) we haven’t had a baby yet, and B) we had a very nice Christmas!

First the baby part… I think we’re officially ready.  Sure, there is more I could do, but I think we’ve got the main things covered – car seat pulled out of storage, hospital bag packed, baby book purchased.  Now we just need the kid to take some initiative.  I did do a purposely long ‘wondering the aisles’ trip to Target Sunday to see if I could get things moving, but no dice.  Plan for tomorrow: clean the house from top to bottom and see if that does anything.

The good part about not giving birth is that we were able to enjoy all of our various Christmas celebrations.  Christmas Eve we went to the service at church, which was just fantastic this year.  I can’t tell you how much it means to me to really feel like we have a whole ‘family’ in our church, people who love and support us and would do just about anything for us.  We are blessed to be a part of this church and celebrating Christmas together is just icing on the cake, so to speak.

After the service we enjoyed Chinese take-out (a long-standing tradition) with Peter’s family.  There is a story behind the tradition, but even if there weren’t, it’s an easy tradition to embrace because take-out means NO COOKING!

Christmas morning came around and Alethea headed down the stairs in her Christmas jammies:

First up, the stocking:

Alethea was most pleased with the Clifford DVD and the bubble bath:

Next thing was opening presents.  Alethea wasn’t very interested in the unwrapping process, but once she saw what was inside, she enjoyed her gifts.  Her favorite by far was the doll:

Alethea has been a very attentive and affectionate new mother.  We’re only just hoping that after months of telling her that a baby is going to come live with us, she doesn’t think this is it:

After our little family Christmas, we headed over to Peter’s parents’ house for more celebrating.  We had a delicious breakfast and a fabulous dinner with present opening and family time sandwiched in between.  Then today was Christmas with my family, also delightful and filled with good food and fantastic gifts.

We hope you enjoyed all of your Christmas festivities too!  And thanks in advance for your thoughts and prayers over the coming days.  This baby has got to come soon!  (Right??!?!)

Busy, Not Giving Birth

It’s been four days since I last posted.  Things around here have been a little crazy, but I haven’t gone into labor, so I thought I’d better post before people started wondering.

Here’s what we’ve been up to:

1) Monday & Tuesday – Making Christmas Treats

We managed to crank out some sugar cookies, cyclops cookies (aka peanut butter blossoms), cupcakes (from a box), caramel corn, puppy chow, as well as coated pretzels, which Alethea particularly enjoyed helping mommy make:

Taste testing counts as helping, right?

2) Tuesday – Party Prep

Tuesday night was my annual piano student Christmas party and mini-recital.  Basically I have all my students over to our house and they play Christmas songs for each other and then we eat junk food and play music themed games.  This year I tried something new – a build your own favor station:

It was a big hit with the kids, even with a strictly enforced limit on the number of pieces of candy they could take.

3) Wednesday – Errands, Check-Up and Lessons

I was fortunate to have lots of help from Alethea’s grandmothers on Wednesday, and thus was able to get to Target, go to my 38 week check-up, buy some more of Peter’s Christmas presents, and still make it home in time to teach several piano lessons.

Bad news is that my midwife said I’m dilated “one to two” centimeters.  Basically, I think she just wanted to make me feel better that I’m not any further along, despite having so many contractions on Saturday that I briefly debated whether I ought to head to the hospital.

Good news though is that the lessons I taught were my last for December, so I am officially free to have this baby without having to do any make-up lessons or refunds.  Woo hoo!

4) Today – Mommy and Alethea’s Fun Day

I’ve been feeling guilty that I’ve been so busy this week that Alethea has been forced to do a whole lot of self-entertaining, so today I planned to spend the whole morning doing Alethea’s favorite activities.  We didn’t get as much time together as I anticipated though, because Alethea slept in ’till 10am (hope she’s not getting sick).  However, Alethea did have fun taking a long bath with her tub toys and we also squeezed in some ‘art’ time.  Our project – decorating paper gift bags with markers:

So that’s our week thus far.

On the docket for tomorrow: a little more shopping, then cleaning the house, followed by the Christmas Eve service at church, then hosting Peter’s family’s traditional Chinese take-out Christmas Eve dinner, and rounded off with a bit of gift wrapping and stocking stuffing before bed.  Should be a delightful day!

The Magic Word

Today was a big first for me, because today at my 37 week check up with my midwives was the first time outside of the hospital that I’ve ever heard the word ‘dilated’ used in the context of, “Yes, you are dilated.”  What a beautiful word!

You see, despite carrying Alethea to 42.5 weeks, my body never began dilating on it’s own.  It was finally forced into it in a successful last ditch effort to avoid a c-section.  Of course, Alethea did eventually arrive and was healthy and strong, so it all worked out in the end, but I have to say that it was so depressing to go to appointment after appointment (and spend 2 days in the hospital going through failed inducement attempts) and be still told “Sorry, we don’t know why, but you’re not dilating, not even a little bit.”

Thus, you can imagine my relief when the midwife told me today, “Hey, you’re dilated to one centimeter.”  I know it’s only one tenth of the way there, but at least I’m guaranteed that whatever else happens, I won’t have to go through everything that I went through with Alethea.  Whew!

The baby is still sitting high, and there isn’t any indication that she’ll make a sudden appearance in the next few days, which is good, because we are SO not ready yet.  Funny how I went from being nervous about going way overdue again to being nervous that Baby B will show up before we get everything prepared for her.

I did ask at my appointment whether they would let us induce at 39 weeks, which is the week between Christmas and New Years and I was told that since my last child was so large, the midwives would let me be induced, but unfortunately the hospital doesn’t allow scheduled inducements during that time frame.  Something about hospital staff wanting time off for the holidays.  What’s up with that?!?!  Don’t they know we want our tax deduction?!?!

However, they can’t turn us away if B decides to come on her own, so I’m already looking into ways to get her to come early.  For sure I need to get the treadmill cleaned off, so I can do a whole lot of walking that week.  Of course, with Alethea I even tried sprinting on the treadmill at around 41 weeks and it did nothing except make me exceptionally sore.  But this time is different… this time I’m dilated!

Getting Ready for… Bunny?

Now that we are T-minus one month until Baby B’s due date, we figured it was about time to get things set up in the nursery.  We borrowed a swing and a bassinet from some friends and got them put in place.

However when we told Alethea they were for the baby, we think maybe she misunderstood.

Baby… Bunny… I guess you can see how she’d get confused.

Begining to Hate Weekends

Most people know the acronym TGIF (Thank God it’s Friday).  I think I’ll start a new one ONIS (Oh No, It’s Saturday).  Two Saturdays ago Alethea came down with a horrible cold, then last Saturday night, it was the flu.  That’s why yesterday evening when Alethea was so hysterical I had to pick her up early from Cousin’s Night at Grandma and Grandpa’s house, I knew we were headed for trouble.  After an urgent care visit this morning and a trip to Target Pharmacy, we are home again with some antibiotics to treat Alethea’s ear infection.

Maybe at least this Saturday trend means that since Thanksgiving is on a Thursday, we’ll get to enjoy a few days of fun before Alethea develops some new illness to keep us on our toes.  Let’s hope so.

As you can tell, I’m feeling a little whiny here.  November hasn’t been a good month around our house.

Some things to look forward to in December:

1) Christmas Tree Hunting, maybe it might even be a little warmer than last year?

2) Neighborhood Secret Santa, I stocked up on cute clearance items last year, so I am prepared!

3) Spending Time with Family (this is Alethea and her cousins at Christmas last year):

4) Advent Services at Church, this is probably my favorite time of year to attend church.  I just love the music and the messages and focusing on the spiritual side of the holidays.  It keeps me grounded during the craziness!

5) Celebrating Christmas with Alethea, even if Santa hats don’t quite fit her cute Bobble Head:

6) Meeting Baby Bob, yeah, I know her due date isn’t until January, but I keep telling her to shoot for December 27th or 28th.  That’s enough time to recover from Christmas, but still before Peter has to go back to work at the beginning of January (his busiest time of the year at work).

Here’s to a fun, festive and healthy month of December!

Mommy’s Little Chain Smoker

Sorry I haven’t posted in the past few days.  Alethea came down with an awful cold late Saturday night and as a result, things around here haven’t been running as smoothly as I would like.  Over the course of the last day or so, the cold has moved down into Alethea’s chest, which isn’t really a good thing, but it does have the humorous upside that when she laughs, she sounds like an old chain smoking lady cackling away.  It’s pretty funny.

As I’m sure none of you want a blow-by-blow of how the past few runny nose days have gone, I’ll simply give you the non-boogery highlights:

1) Now that I’m done stenciling the focal wall in Alethea’s big girl room, I’ve turned my attention to the remaining projects in the room.  I was able to get some shopping done over the weekend and picked up some supplies and also a beaded curtain for the window.  When I handed Alethea the curtain still in the box she said, “Oooh!”, but when I took it out of box and held it up she said, “Oooh!  OOOOOOH!”  I’ll take that as an 18 month old’s seal of approval.

Alethea was excited about her curtain, even when it was still in the box!

Alethea was excited about her curtain, even when it was still in the box!

2) I finally found a bookcase on Craigslist that I think will be perfect for her room.  I’m supposed to pick it up tomorrow evening.  Crossing my fingers that it doesn’t get sold out from under me.

I want this bookcase!

3) Tomorrow I have my 32 week pregnancy check-up.  This is also the third time this pregnancy that I am taking the 1 hour glucose tolerance test.  I passed the test when I was pregnant with Alethea, but then she was 10lbs at birth, so they are convinced I had undiagnosed gestational diabetes with my first pregnancy and are determined to make sure I’m diagnosed if I have it this time.  So far this pregnancy, I passed my first test well, the second one at 28 weeks was ‘on the high side of normal’, so they are having me do a third.

Sigh…

In my head I know it’s all for the best, but I don’t really like having blood drawn and I really HATE the stuff they make you drink beforehand.  If you’ve never had the test, just imagine guzzling 10 ounces of undiluted McDonald’s orange drink concentrate.  Yuck!

I think Alethea is going to be up from her nap soon, so I’d better run, but stay tuned and I’ll let you know how everything turns out.

Kinda Tired

Peter and I stayed up late Tuesday night to watch Election results.  Turns out we shouldn’t have bothered.  With the MN governor’s race headed for recount, we won’t know for weeks what’s going to happen.  Besides, as Peter put it, “I’m just too old to stay up ’till 2am anymore.”  Sad, but true.

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Early this morning we were treated to a very enthusiastic rendition of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star coming from Alethea’s room at 2:30am, and 3:30am AND 4:30am.  While mildly impressed that my child can carry a recognizable tune, I think I must have a discussion with her about appropriate concert times.

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I’ve skipped my afternoon nap and stayed up late into the evening a few days this week to try and get the stenciling done in Alethea’s big girl room.  I’m almost there (just some touch-ups left), but I didn’t make my original goal, which was to have Alethea moved into her room by the end of October, nor am I going to make my second goal which was to have her moved in by today, which is two months until Baby Bob’s due date.  New plan: finish painting/clean up today and move her crib into the room tomorrow.

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Oh, and I AM going to take a nap this afternoon.

How to Pick a Name

When we were trying to pick a name for Alethea, I devised a method of ruling out names so that Peter and I didn’t have to go around in circles.  I would propose a category and he would deem it “In” or “Out”.

“Out” categories when we were working on picking Alethea’s name included:

Cities/States/Countries – so no London, Georgia, Jordan

French Names – Isabella, Gabriella (which I love, by the way)

Gem Stones – Ruby, Jade, Topaz

Fruits/Vegetables – Apple, Pear, Peach

Flowers other than ‘Rose’ – Lily, Peony, Aster

And anything Peter felt falls under the “Stage Names of Adult Entertainers” category, which he seems to think is rather broader than I do, but I had to agree that we didn’t want our daughter’s name to sound like a stripper.

Now that we are expecting another girl, I went back and checked with Peter and the same categories are still “out”.  So now I need some new categories to work with.  Luckily though, I overheard a conversation yesterday that may help me greatly.  I was at the doctor’s office for my check-up and a woman was in the waiting room with a little girl about Alethea’s age.  One of the nurses came out and saw them and said “Oh hi [insert name], is this your baby?” To which the woman responded, “Yes, this is Indigo.”

COLORS!  There have got to be about a gazillion options there.  Obviously there are your basic ROYGBIV colors, but thinking beyond that we get to such amazing names as Cerulean, Periwinkle and my personal favorite Burnt Umber.  I would of course also suggest Aquamarine, but as that probably falls under both the Gem Stones and Adult Entertainment categories, I think it’s already out.

Just for fun, leave me a comment letting me know what color you would pick if you had to name a kid after a Crayola Crayon.  I need options!

Alethea’s Big Girl Room: A List

1. Plan Layout

2. Choose Paint Color (custom mix #6) & Buy Paint

3. Take ‘Before’ Pictures

4. Find Perfectly Sized/Priced Dresser on Craigslist

5. Somehow get seller of Craigslist Dresser to e-mail me back, then buy dresser

6. Paint Room

7. Buy good quality bunk beds and mattress

8. Buy remaining furniture as cheaply as possible, then begin furniture rehab

9. Pick out fabrics/pattern so Grandma Denny can make quilt

10. Buy/make accessories for room, find/make curtains, buy blackout roller shade for window

11. Move in furniture, decorate room, move in Alethea’s book/toys

12. Convince Alethea to sleep in big girl bed so baby can use crib

DEADLINE FOR ALL OF ABOVE: January 4th 2011

A Little Bit of Everything

Maybe Alethea doesn’t know Sesame Street as well as I thought she did.  Today she was looking at the Sponge Bob towel that was laying on the floor with clothes drying on it.  She pointed at Patrick (the starfish) and said “Emo!”  I tried telling her that it was Patrick, but she was very insistent that it was Elmo.  Oh well.

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I went to Sherwin Williams and bought paint for Alethea’s big girl room.  Instead of going with any of the pre-mixed options, I took my multitude of paint samples and whipped up my own color.  It only took me 8 or so tries and several hours to finally get the “perfect” gray.  Not too light, not too dark, not too blue, not too tan.  I think it’s all for the best, but the rule follower in me feels weird using an “unofficial” color.

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The baby has been moving around a lot more lately.  It seems to me that her movements are a bit less forceful than Alethea’s were at about the same age, but maybe that’s just me hoping not to have two very assertive children who are only 20 months apart.

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I know everyone says Alethea looks like Peter, and she does.  But the other day my sister-in-law Julie over at TheAnticsoftheThree22nds posted pictures of her youngest three at around 5-6 months.  I still think that the person Alethea looks most like is her cousin Roman.

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I’m super excited about our Labor Day Block Party this weekend.  We are hosting it at our house.  I told Peter that I was going to do red, white and blue for the paper goods and decorations.  He said that Labor Day isn’t a red, white and blue kind of holiday.  What color is it then?

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I’m trying to score a cheap dresser and nightstand off craigslist for Alethea’s room.  Only problem is I think I need a really narrow dresser.  The wall seemed long enough for bunk beds and a dresser, but when I actually measured it out I ended up with about 27 inches for the dresser.  I really want to keep my room arrangement how I have it planned out though, so I think I’ll keep hunting for a narrow-but-tall dresser.

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