Holy Hell

I was just looking at some old pictures and found the picture of me 32 weeks pregnant with Stowa.

I look so much bigger this time. Huge. And I'm only going to get bigger. Yikes.

32 weeks

Thirty two weeks. I've been pregnant for thirty two weeks. I've known I was pregnant for 29 weeks. That's right, I KNEW I was pregnant before there were two lines on the test. I just knew it.

With Stowa I didn't know I was pregnant until I was like 10 or so weeks.

Now pregnancy is roughly 40 weeks long. But since I didn't know about Stowa for 10 weeks and she came at 41 weeks, it's like I was only pregnant for 31 weeks. If Little Dude comes when he is scheduled to, it will be like I was pregnant for 36 weeks. That's an extra 5 weeks people. Did I tell you all that we have a scheduled date? We do. October 6th is his official eviction date. He could leave early I suppose.

Here's the belly pic. I figure we have two more of these to go. 36 weeks and D-day. If I remember to take the pic on D-day. I didn't with Stowa. Oops.


According to Itchy I'm ready to pop. At least that is what he told his staff.


Ignore the date again.

Crafty

I had the craft bug the last few days. Stowa has been taking decent naps so I've had time to work on a few things. Once I get started I can get things done pretty quick. Again, the dates are all screwy. I've reset the date a thousand times and it just keeps going back to whatever it wants.

Here are two of the things I've made over for the baby.

His quilt:


I made something very similar for Stowa. The back of it is super soft fleece. The satin trim is a pain in the butt though. I don't have the right sewing equipment to make it easier and since I rarely work with it, I have no interest in getting it.

This is a car seat cover. You know to keep out the cold. It has elastic around the bottom so the wind won't blow it off.



Baby is clearly not harnessed properly here but since she isn't in the car it doesn't matter. I think the cover turned out pretty well considering the fact that I had no pattern to work with. I winged it.

Still working on the cross stitching. Goodness is that time consuming. One day. I would still like to make the fleece blankets for each of the kids, but I may save them for Christmas gifts.

Freak

Most women have to worry about high blood pressure during pregnancy. I must be some special brand of freak. I have low blood pressure. Today it was 82/50. Since I'm not having any issues, like dizziness, my doctor isn't too concerned. If anything changes, I am suppose to call.

I apparently haven't gained enough weight either. Measuring right on track though, so the baby is growing just fine. I don't understand it. I feel like a freaking walrus. I LOOK like a freaking walrus. But I haven't gained enough. Whatever. The baby is the one that needs to gain weight. I have plenty to spare. I could probably LOSE weight during this pregnancy and still have a giant baby.

Little Dude is growing as he should be. He is still breech, but since he's going to arrive via c-section, it doesn't really matter. It's just uncomfortable for me to have his head in my rib cage and his feet kicking my bladder.

Stowa and I went to check out the hospital today. I wanted to see what the labor and delivery department looked like. I got to meet the lactation consultant. She was really excited that I plan to breastfeed Little Dude. She was even more excited that Stowa nursed until just a few months ago. She showed us around. It's a really new hospital so everything is really nice.

After the tour we were standing by the nurse's desk. One of the nurses was feeding an adorable little baby. The nurse giving the tour pushed Stowa over there to see the baby (Stowa was riding nicely in her stroller). The other nurse brought the baby over to her and was letting her touch the baby. Then the nurse asked if Stowa wanted to hold the baby. OMG. I said no. There was no way she was holding a stranger's baby! I'd be pissed if I sent my baby to the nursery only to find that they let a stranger's almost 2 yr old hold my baby.

It was really weird. Thank goodness they encourage rooming in.

Genius

Marketing genius. Yep, the folks who are in charge of marketing Sesame Street are freaking geniuses.

Stowa has seen Sesame Street a handful of times. She doesn't really even watch it. But I'll be damned if she doesn't know who Elmo is.

We went to Target today. This kid has hit a growth spurt and her shoes no longer fit. After we found a pair of shoes that fit, we looked at clothes. She spotted an Elmo shirt from across the section. She was yelling Elmo, Elmo, Elmo.

She is the proud new owner of an Elmo shirt.

Way to go PBS. You've hooked another one.

Smoke Signals

Remember when Itchy and I bought our grill? It was sometime this summer. Well, when we bought the grill there was an option to get a smoker attachment. We're suckers for crap like that so we bought the smoker too.

We've used the grill quite a bit this summer. I like it. It doesn't look as cool as our football grill, but it's a heck of a lot easier to grill with.

I decided that we needed to use the smoker this weekend. I researched the crap out of ribs to find out what kind of ribs were the best. I read about what to look for in a good brisket. Stowa and I went to the store armed with all sorts of info. The grocery store didn't have exactly what we wanted but we figured we would make it all work.

I spent all freaking day tending to the smoker. Low and slow. Really freaking slow. That's the motto. Wood chips only produce smoke for about 15 minutes. You want smoke for at least 3 hours. Do the math. Then you have to maintain the temp for at least 3 more hours. In my case it was almost 5 more hours. It's not like I was doing hard manual labor but this was a lot of work.

The results: It was worth it! I didn't eat the ribs since I can't eat pork, but Itchy and Stowa loved them. Itchy called them "perfect". The brisket? Delicious. Even though it could have been out there a little longer. It was still really good. We all ate the brisket. I'm practically in a meat coma right now. Stowa couldn't resist it. She loved it. She kept asking for more. Kid was sad when it was gone.

Getting old?

Yep, it's another blurb about my kid and the cute things she does.

We've been playing with a few of the stuffed animals that are in her room. One of them is a raccoon. She calls it a unggoon. LOL.

It's cool that she can talk and all. She has plenty of words that she pronounces correctly. But the mispronunciations are funny to me.

Funny and cute

So Itchy and I tend to call the cats hobos. You know like the penniless vagabonds that they are. Apparently Stowa has caught on to this. She now calls Patches "hobo". Last night she put a hand on each side of Patches' face and nearly yelled "hobo" in her face. I freaking love it.

Itchy is worried that people will think she's saying homo. I suppose that would be very un-PC of her. She better watch it.

It's done

The kids' room is done. More or less. There are a few little details that need to be finished and a few things that will change a little, but it's done. Again, ignore the dates. I'm pretty sure it's not Halloween yet.

Starting from the door:
I'm well aware that you aren't suppose to use a crib bumper. Also, the crib skirt is not on the crib yet.
Notice the non-basketball themed light.
Stowa's big girl bed. The little things above the head of her bed are fireflies. They glow in the dark. So do the fire flies on her pillows and quilt.
See, here is a close up of the fire flies. I love them.
This is Stowa's dresser.

These are the closets. Fascinating right? Not really but I took the picture, so you have to look at it. The frame in the middle is the birth announcement I made for Stowa when she was born. I'm making the same thing for Little Dude, but making it more boyish. When it gets done, I'll hang it right below Stowa's.

I have a really cute picture frame that I want to hang in the room but I don't think it's going to work. It's pretty big and I just don't have a good place to hang it. It will probably go on the wall right outside the room.