Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Funny toddler things

No. It's a complete sentence and I hear it a lot these days. I knew it was coming. Stowa has totally embraced it and says it ALL THE TIME.

The big girl bed is going well. Except for the set back we seem to be going through. We spent one night at FIL's house and Stowa had to sleep with me and now she's fighting the notion of sleeping in her bed. I'm hoping this passes quickly.

Getting rid of the pacifier is going to lead to drinking. She gets so damn whiny when she wants it but can't have it. The idea is that she can have it when she's sleeping (nap or nighttime). During the day it disappears. The whining, oh my god the whining. I'm hoping that this too will pass quickly.

Cute stuff? She's full of it. For example when we were at FIL's house, we were playing with the landscaping rocks in the backyard. They were in the sun so they were warm to the touch. Stowa would pick one up declare that it was hot and then blow on it. It was silly and cute.

Another example: Today Stowa and I had errands to run. She insisted on wearing her winter hat everywhere we went. In the 80 degree weather. Totally cute.

Yet another: Stowa has become quite attached to her baby. She's always been drawn to dolls. At three months old she got a tiny little baby that she loved. It quickly became a favorite toy. Over the last couple of months though, her baby has become very important to her. Baby comes outside with us, she comes on trips, she goes with to run errands, etc. Basically where ever Stowa is, baby is right there too. Stowa fell asleep with baby clutched in her arms.

One more for good measure: Her sweet little voice. Kills us. Even when all she is saying is no, it's cute. Right now she's adding an "a" to most words. Like upa for up. She sounds like a tiny little Greek kid.

Did I mention how cute it is when she "beeps" noses? Because it's adorable when she wants to beep my nose, Itchy's nose, and then both of the cats' noses. The cats disagree, but what do they know?

Friday, July 22, 2011

28 weeks

Officially 28 weeks today. 12 weeks until the baby is here. Except since I'll have a planned c-section so it's more like 11 weeks. He still has no name. We don't even have a list of names we like.

Here's the belly shot. Ignore the date on the picture. For some reason my camera is possessed and the date keeps changing. It was taken this morning.
Here's a picture of Patches. After the haircut. It was also taken this morning.

Here she is like two years ago. It was the only picture I could find.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

It's too hot

Stowa and I have been stuck in the house. It's too hot to be outside. We're both going stir crazy.

I had an appointment yesterday. Had to take the gestational diabetes test. I was sure that I was going to fail. Thankfully I was wrong. I am slightly anemic though. I get to take iron supplements now. I should be walking down to the pharmacy to pick them up but it's too damn hot. I'll go tomorrow.

Little dude seems to be growing as expected. He was playing dodge the doppler though. My doc could not get a good heart rate from him. We heard the heartbeat but every time we'd hear it LD would move. It was like a game.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Random thoughts

  1. I'm tired. I really want Stowa to go take a nap so I can go take a nap.
  2. My dad and his wife came to visit. They gave us an air conditioner. Yay!
  3. I nearly passed out at the grocery store today. Sorry if I was blocking you from getting your precious Captain Crunch.
  4. Patches got a haircut yesterday. It was suppose to be a trim. Just the fur by her butt. Then I was just going to get the mats off her belly. Then the ones on her back. Poor girl is nearly bald right now. It was either an all over trim or lots of bald spots. Either way she'd look ridiculous. I'll get a pic later.
  5. Seeing Patches reminded me of our Island neighbors. They use to shave their cats once a month. We teased them about it.
  6. Itchy joined the local gym. He plans to go for a couple of hours three days a week. When I told him that he'd be solely in charge of Stowa for a couple of hours on the weekend so I could have some kid free time, he threw a fit. Suck it dude. It's not even like I'm planning on leaving the house. I'd be downstairs working on some crafty projects.
  7. I think I may have signed up for Facebook (or it's equivalent) by accident.
  8. I'm already starting to think about Christmas presents.
  9. I have to do the glucose test next week. I'm convinced that I'm going to fail.
  10. I need to find something to wear to a wedding I have to go to in two weeks. I feel like I should be shopping at the tent store.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Bounce house update

Friday night was a win! When Stowa was ready to crash, we went and laid down on her bed. She laid down and was quiet. She did not fall asleep there, but remember I set the bar really low. Just getting her to stop jumping on the damn thing was a win.

Saturday was a bust. Kid was in a rotten mood and nothing was making her happy. She ended up staying up until almost 2. I was just about asleep on the couch so we just went to bed.

Right now, she is napping in her bed. It's been an hour and a half. Yay!

So far so good.

Uh oh

We had a small incident today. It involved the police (sort of).

Stowa and I went shopping today. We needed a few things from Target so we headed south to the closest one. Nothing exciting there. Well, I did find Stowa a pair of cute shoes for $4.

After Target I took Stowa to the mall. They have a cool little play area and I needed to look for something to wear to a wedding. We shopped first and then went to play.

The play area is usually stressful. My kid is tiny. There are usually big kids there with no one watching them. Guess who gets knocked over? Today though, was different. When we got there it was like some magical toddler land. I think the oldest kid was only 2. Still quite a few kids but it was all toddlers and babies. Well behaved ones too. There was no fighting, biting, running, pushing, etc. The kids all played nicely together. I got to sit down. Usually I have to hover over my kid to make sure she isn't pushed around too much. Stowa really clicked with one little girl in particular. They walked around holding hands and sharing their toys (Stowa's baby and P's kitty). It was cute. P and her mom left. Stowa was still happy and busy playing. This is when it started to go downhill. Fast.

A mom and her 4 brats showed up. The youngest boy was probably 2. Then there was a 6 year old boy, a 7ish year old girl, and a 10ish year old boy. The little girl was not allowed to play. She was repeatedly told to sit down on the bench and be quiet. The 2 year old sat under the little bridge thing and did not interact at all with anyone. The other two? Yeah. They were jerks. Running all over the place, knocking the little kids over, hitting each other, etc. Rotten.

Stowa was staying pretty close to me. I was watching her like a hawk. She and another little girl (only about 13 months old) walked over to the slide. They went up the stairs together. No one else was anywhere near the slide. The girls were sitting at the top of the slide. All of a sudden the bratty 6 year old ran up the slide part and pushed the girls off the top of the slide, down the stairs. Asshole.

Stowa rolled down the stairs and face planted into the carpet. The baby flew from the top of the slide to the ground without hitting a single step.

I ran over to Stowa and made sure she was ok. Just a little carpet burn on her face. Not the end of the world. The other little girl (A) was SCREAMING. Not a big surprise. I turned to say something to the little asshole that had just shoved my kid (open palm to the chest) but instead I turned only to see A's mom with Jerkface in a death grip, yelling at him about never ever doing anything like that again and then screaming for security and an ambulance. Jerkface's mom then came running over yelling at A's mom for grabbing her kid's arm.

It didn't take long before security showed up. Three of them. They had to take our statements. When they asked Jerkface why he did it, he said it was because he didn't want them to use the slide. Jerkface's mom wanted A's mom arrested because she left marks on his arm. A's mom wanted to sue Jerkface for hurting her kid. It was all very dramatic. There was a lot of yelling. By the way, A seemed to be fine. Once her mom finally picked her up she stopped crying. There didn't appear to be any injuries. Stowa didn't even cry. She has a tiny red mark on her face. She was off playing before security even got there.

But holy crap. The whole thing was just a mess. It went from being fun to awful in no time. I get where A's mom was coming from. I too wanted to kill the little bastard. Our reactions were just very different.

Friday, July 8, 2011

The bounce house has arrived

Oops, I mean bed. Stowa's new bed is here. She just likes to bounce on it.

This is sure to be an interesting transition. I'm setting my expectations REALLY low. If I can get her to lay down on it and be quiet, tonight will be a win.

The green room, as we like to call it around here, felt small before. It's not a big room by anyone's standards. If it were for one kid, it would be plenty of space. Two kids? Well it's a little cramped. I made Itchy move things around and around to see how the different options would look. He played along only to have me decide that the first option was the only decent option.

Now that Stowa's bed is here and the furniture is where it's going to be, I can finish the room up. I had cute plans for the shelves I wanted to put up but there isn't a good place to put the shelves. Now the only shelves will be the practical ones above the changing table. Once everything is done, I will take pictures.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Busy day

On Wednesday, Stowa and I drove up north to meet up with my darling niece, my sister, and my brother in law. We met up at the zoo. It was really fun to hang out with my niece. I don't get to see any of my nieces often enough, so when I do get to see them, it's always really fun for me.

Stowa wasn't feeling the zoo. She woke up crabby. She remained crabby. She finally perked up when we were just about done at the zoo. The peacock was totally her favorite animal this time.

We also went on a tour of a mansion. It was cool but my kid didn't think so. Being in a place where she had to be quiet and not touch anything isn't fun for her. I was hoping she'd fall asleep. No such luck. Whatever. It was still interesting.

After that we went to a lighthouse. We got to watch a freight ship come into port. But we were not at the lighthouse that we had intended to be at. A 25 minute drive further north got us to the right lighthouse only to find that because of the state shutdown, the state park that the lighthouse is located in, was closed. It thought it was funny. The rest of the group did not.

What better way to celebrate the country...

We had a fantastic 4th of July weekend! We were lucky enough to have two of our best friends from The Island visit. Stara and CW! Yay! CW brought along her husband (whom is also cool and fun to hang out with) and their freaking adorable baby Little Ladyfingers (LL).

They came up here on Saturday. Stowa ran up to Stara and wanted to be picked up. She never ever does this. Then I saw LL. Oh my gosh. She is cute. And I'm not just saying that because her mama is reading this. She is seriously a beautiful baby. I had seen pictures and they were cute but in person, even more adorable. And she's really tiny and snuggly. And she has that tiny baby smell.

Anyway, Itchy was able to get a boat for the weekend so we boated over to a local restaurant for dinner. It was probably not a great choice, since it was really busy. My kid was rotten during the wait for food, which was way too long. There were people smoking near us. Gag. LL was just a tiny bit over stimulated by the noise. We should have gone elsewhere.

After we got out of there we tried to do a little fishing. CW's husband was the only one that caught anything and it wasn't much.

Sunday we gave them the tour of the clinic. Itchy got to show off his fun toys. They have both been offered jobs at the clinic. The offer itself isn't that great but I think they should seriously consider it.

We went out on the boat that afternoon. No fish were caught. But it was still fun. Everything was going well until the boat died. Yep it just died. Being on a lake in WI, it didn't take long before someone came by to help. A retired Navy SEAL and his friends towed us back to the resort. I think we were moving faster being towed than we did when the boat was running on it's own.

We grilled some food that night, had a fire in the yard, and were eaten alive by mosquitoes. It doesn't sound like much fun, but it was. CW and Stara are now to blame for any weight that I gain this summer. Pregnant or not. They made me eat a cookie S'more. That's right. A toasted marshmallow in between pieces of a chocolate chip cookie. I'm giving my doctor their numbers. They can explain it to him. I don't know if I can go back to regular S'mores.

Sadly they had to leave early on Monday. They had a long drive back. I really wish they lived closer. Hanging out with them is the thing I miss most about the The Island. If they would just take the jobs they have been offered we could hang out all the time!

They missed the lame ass parade that went by our house. Itchy and I must be jaded or something because everyone around us (and there were a lot of people around us) seemed to be enjoying it. We both agreed that we would skip it next year. It was stupid and lame. I do not understand why people had chairs set up (in my yard) the night before the parade.

After being bored to tears at the parade, we all took a 3 hour nap. We were all tired.

We took Stowa out on the boat that night for a little fishing and fireworks. The fishing wasn't great but the fireworks were cool. Stowa kept asking for "mor". Drastic change from last year.